International scrutiny needed - Amnesty

Amnesty International said in a statement at the weekend that it was "appealing" to the Commonwealth and the broader international ommunity to send observers as a matter of urgency to monitor the human rights situation in Zimbabwe. "Amnesty International is concerned that the months preceding the presidential election due in 2002 will likely be marked by an upsurge in human rights violations. Thus the process of sending monitors should start as soon as possible," the rights group said. In reference to an interim agreement reached on Thursday at a Commonwealth ministers' meeting in Abuja, Nigeria, Amnesty said: "For the Abuja agreement to be successful, the Zimbabwe government should provide an atmosphere in which all people, including opposition candidates and supporters, are free to express their political beliefs, peacefully assemble and campaign without the fear of violence". The Abuja deal on land reform was aimed at ending Zimbabwe's political and economic crisis. According to Amnesty, the human rights climate in the next by-election, on 22 and 23 September in the Chikomba constituency in the Mashonaland East Province of Zimbabwe will be the first true test of the willingness of the government to abide by Thursday's agreement to end political violence. "Members of the Commonwealth delegation to Abuja, including representatives of Kenya, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom, should closely monitor the run-up to the Chikomba balloting to ensure that human rights are respected," the statement urged. It said that the agreement had come too late to prevent human rights violations in the Makoni West constituency. The rights group said that the run-up to this weekend's polling had been "marked by beatings, burning of houses and forcible displacement". News reports on Monday quoted the country's main opposition - the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) - as accusing the ruling ZANU-PF party of "massive rigging" and of harassing MDC members during the Makoni West by-election and a mayoral poll in the country's second city, Bulawayo, at the weekend. The 'Daily News' reported that a group of ZANU-PF youths in Makoni West allegedly stormed a church service on Sunday morning and forced scores of worshippers to go and vote. Wilcot Mushore, a presiding officer at Gurure Primary School, was quoted as saying that a headman aligned to ZANU-PF was seen by polling agents recording the names of people from his area who turned up to vote. "The headman was reprimanded. We told him to stop what he was doing because it was against the provisions of the Electoral Act," Mushore said. Remus Makuwaza of the MDC and ZANU-PF's Gibson Munyoro are battling for the parliamentary seat left vacant after the death of Moven Mahachi, the minister of defence, in a car accident in May. Vote counting was expected to begin on Monday morning, with the results expected on Tuesday. Meanwhile, the 'Daily News' quoted the MDC as alleging that "thousands" of ZANU-PF supporters were bussed in from outside Bulawayo to cast their votes in the mayoral election. It added that the poll was marred by incidents of violence and voter apathy. In one incident, police reportedly raided the Bulawayo offices of the MDC on Saturday and arrested three members. "We were surrounded by riot police. They took away one of our vans and arrested the bodyguards of one of our MPs," MDC mayoral candidate, Japhet Ndabeni-Ncube, was quoted as saying. Ndabeni-Ncube said five Land Rovers and "a truckload of riot police" descended on the MDC offices in Bulawayo shortly after 6.00 pm. They arrested the bodyguards working for Bulawayo South MDC MP David Coltart, Ndabeni-Ncube said.