MDC undeterred by ZANU-PF threats on protests

Despite the ruling ZANU-PF party's threats of a violent confrontation, Zimbabwe's opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) plans to go ahead with street protests over the government's failure to address the crumbling economy and mounting food shortages. ZANU-PF's secretary for Information and Publicity, Nathan Shamuyarira, warned this week that calls for civil disobedience by MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai were irresponsible, and that the security forces would deal ruthlessly with any law-breakers. Local media reported Shamuyarira as saying, "ZANU-PF alone has the gruelling experience of war, and strongly urges the armchair talkers to shut up. War is not like a picnic or a dinner party: it is blood, sweat, injuries and death." Tsvangirai, a 54-year-old former trade unionist, told IRIN on Thursday that he was unfazed by the government's threats, and added that strategic planning for the mass protests, expected to be held soon, were underway. "What could one expect of a brutal regime such as ZANU-PF?" asked Tsvangirai. "Since the MDC came into existence, Mugabe has subjected us to all kinds of torture, and his officials have even threatened to physically eliminate us. But we are not moved, and mobilisation for mass action is surely underway." The opposition leader urged President Robert Mugabe to abdicate power and create an environment conducive to a new dispensation. Civic groups, such as the National Constitutional Assembly and the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, have backed Tsvangirai's call for peaceful street protests. Public demonstrations require police permission and past attempts to mount street protests have largely flopped. Meanwhile, the crackdown on the opposition continued at the weekend, when police raided the MDC's offices in the second city, Bulawayo, in search of "arms of war and other subversive material", but found none. The latest clampdown follows the discovery of an arms cache earlier this month at the home of a former pre-independence Rhodesian army member, Mike Peter Hitschmann, in Mutare, 260 km east of the capital, Harare. The state claimed Hitschmann and the MDC were involved in a plot to overthrow the ZANU-PF government and assassinate Mugabe. Although prosecutors have since dropped charges against four MDC members who were arrested, Hitschmann and two police officers are still being held as investigations widen. White commercial farmers, who government believes form an integral part of the MDC support base, have now become the latest targets of the probe. Under the government's fast-track land reform programme, which began in 2000, most of the country's white commercial farmers, who owned 75 percent of the productive land, were removed from their farms to make way for landless Zimbabweans who had been crowded into overused communal areas during colonial rule. Some members of the Commercial Farmers Union (CFU), which mainly represents the remaining small white farming community, told IRIN that their properties had been ransacked in the past few days by a security unit comprising members of the army and the police, who said they were looking for weapons of war. "Almost all of us have had our farms searched. The police told us they had information that because we are angry about the expropriation of our farms by the government, we have weapons that we intend to use to kill President Mugabe. "But, truly speaking, this is pure harassment and it shows how paranoid our government has become. It's shocking how the discovery of petty arms from one white man will raise suspicions that the whole white community has weapons for sinister agendas in their possession," commented a farmer in Mutare. CFU President Douglas Taylor-Freeme said he had received "a few reports" from members of his union, but did not want to elaborate. Didymus Mutasa, the Minister of Security, confirmed that investigations into the alleged plot to overthrow the regime were ongoing. "We have said it before, and we reiterate that no one with a hand in this plot [to kill Mugabe] will be spared," he told IRIN. "Our security forces are busy at work and investigations are continuing ... Whether one is a farmer or an ordinary person, if they are singled out as a suspect, they will surely be interrogated."