Govt vows to "eliminate" plotters

Zimbabwe's ruling ZANU-PF party may use the discovery of an arms cache, and an alleged opposition plot to overthrow the government, as pretexts for cracking down on its detractors, say analysts. So far, 10 people have been arrested, including some members of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), after police found weapons and communication equipment at the home of a former pre-independence Rhodesian army member, Peter Hitschmann, in Mutare, 260 km east of the capital, Harare. Zimbabwean authorities have attempted to link Hitschmann to the Zimbabwean Freedom Movement (ZFM), a little-known group that released a video recording in 2003 of two uniformed balaclava-clad men seated before the country's flag, and declared its intention to launch an armed struggle to oust ZANU-PF. The ZFM was dismissed by most analysts in Zimbabwe as a hoax. But the government has claimed that the ZFM was affiliated to the MDC and that gay rights activist Peter Tatchell contacted Hitschmann and senior MDC officials to orchestrate a coup. The MDC has strongly denied the allegations. Analyst Brian Raftopoulous told IRIN the state's allegations were "part of a pattern of the way ZANU-PF deals with opposition - it did it with ZAPU in the 80s, by finding a pretext to use the military and to use force to smash opposition to its rule". He said it was in line with a "pattern of intolerance towards opposition". "If one also looks at Operation Murambatsvina last year, which was ostensibly an urban renewal campaign but [essentially] was a clampdown on urban opposition, [the latest charges] are a continuation of that process as ZANU-PF prepares for life after [President Robert] Mugabe. They are beginning a process of eliminating any possible opposition before Mugabe steps down," Raftopoulous concluded. Zimbabwe's State Security Minister, Didymus Mutasa, told the official television station, Newsnet, that security forces would deal with the alleged plotters to the point of "physically eliminating them". Chris Maroleng, of the Pretoria-based Institute for Security Studies, told IRIN that "if the comments attributed to Mutasa are correct, it could be seen as giving the security forces a licence to kill, and justifies harassment of the opposition". However, he noted that there were questions regarding the veracity of the allegations. "Their location in the eastern highlands of Zimbabwe could indicate the arms are a throwback stash from the liberation struggle period, when there was a high number of small arms caches in the country. The story being presented does not seem to make sense ... [but] this might serve as justification for the imposition of a state of emergency or more surveillance and arrests of those opposed to the ZANU-PF government," Maroleng added. Raftopoulous echoed these sentiments, saying he believed the state's attempt to create a "link between the arms cache and the MDC is extremely tenuous - it's very shadowy and is clearly a pretext to criminalise the MDC".