Mugabe at the helm

Political opponents of President Robert Mugabe and human rights activists on Wednesday accused his ruling ZANU-PF party of waging a countrywide campaign of intimidation. "The human rights situation in this country has never been as bad as it is right now," Bidi Munyaradzi, director of ZimRights told IRIN. "It is really quite frightening the way his ruling ZANU-PF people have gone all out to harass and intimidate the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). People trying to organise or attend opposition meetings have been beaten up, and in some cases killed. Human rights monitors too have been the targets of this and it is extremely worrying ahead of next month's election." MDC officials said they feared Mugabe would use the showdown over the occupation of white farms by independence war veterans to declare a state of emergency. "But this is unlikely as long as he feels he has the upper hand, and right now he has all the cards," Munyaradzi said. "Yet anything can happen in the next couple of weeks." Margaret Dongo, one the country's three opposition members of parliament, and herself a war veteran, said she and representatives of her fledgling Zimbabwe Union of Democrats (ZUD) were finding it virtually impossible to run a normal campaign. "He wants to go ahead with the election next month and would only resort to a state of emergency if there is a chance of losing. There are now killings every day, there are beatings, phone tapping, petrol bombs, all sorts of violence," she said. "He is using cheap propaganda with the farmers to drum up the race issue. I escaped a petrol bomb attack and last night strange men followed me home. It is terrifying. The police seem to be doing nothing to stop this intimidation and we are witnessing a breakdown in the rule of law." They and other analysts said that for the time being every indication showed Mugabe to be firmly at the helm. Should Britain compensate any of the farmers for losses sustained in recent days, or help buy them out, Mugabe would have something tangible for his supporters. In an interview with IRIN on Wednesday, Jonathan Moyo, chief strategist of the ruling ZANU-PF party insisted that there was no intimidation, and that the election would go ahead next month. The reports of violence, he added, had been "hyped" by the international media. Zimbabwe he said was calm, and life was normal. "It is the wish of the opposition that we would declare a state of emergency, it is their prayer, because they want the election to be delayed," Moyo said. "So this talk of a state of emergency is absolute nonsense, and the way they (the opposition) are dealing with it is to create chaos." Asked to comment on Mugabe's statement that the white farmers were "enemies" of the state, he said they had not participated in party politics until their support lately for the MDC. "The president used a big if. In a democracy everyone is free to join whatever party they wish. But if you step outside the bounds, we will say you are our enemies. The white farmers have become terribly excited over this issue and they have demonised Mr Mugabe. For 20 years they haven't participated in politics in this country," he said. "The farmers armed their workers during the liberation war like they are doing right now. Sadly the guns used in the regrettable killings of two farmers in recent days were found in the farms themselves." He said Mugabe held talks on Wednesday with Chenjerai Hunzvi, a Polish-trained medical doctor who is chairman of the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association. Hunzvi, who has nicknamed himself "Hitler", is currently on bail on separate charges that he defrauded the state-run War Victims Compensation Fund. His surgery in Harare was recently sacked by angry veterans. On Wednesday, before the meeting with Mugabe, he was found guilty of contempt of court. Although further details of the case were not immediately available, the predominantly white Commercial Farmers Union (CFU) had sought a court order to stop him campaigning for the occupation of farms. "As we speak they are meeting, and Mr Mugabe will then meet the CFU people. What I can tell you is that he is going to tell them all to calm down and stop this violence. I can assure you that the president and all of us want an amicable and just solution to the problem so that we can hold a peaceful election," Moyo told IRIN.