Opposition looks to SADC

Civic organisations in Zimbabwe see regional and international pressure as the last hope for ending the country's worsening political violence, despite the failure so far of southern African leaders to take effective action to stem the political crisis.

Advocacy groups are planning to lobby regional leaders at an extraordinary Southern African Development Community (SADC) summit on Zimbabwe in Malawi later this month, Brian Raftopoulos of the Crisis Coordinationg Committee of Zimbabwe told IRIN on Wednesday. Raftopoulos, an associate professor at the University of Zimbabwe, said that civic representatives would also visit key countries in the region in a bid to persuade their governments that sustained pressure on Harare was needed to ensure free and fair presidential elections in March.

The one-day SADC summit, called by the organisation's chair and Malawian President Bakili Muluzi, is expected to take place on 14 January in Blantyre, Malawi's Daily Times reported. It will follow a meeting in Harare last month by a SADC ministerial task team that refused to call the Zimbabwean government - widely blamed for the political violence - to order. The regional grouping was labelled as irrelevant by Zimbabwe's main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

Raftopoulos, whose organisation provided testimony to an earlier SADC meeting on Zimbabwe, said he did not at the moment foresee the regional body taking action against President Robert Mugabe - a key figure within SADC.

But, SADC could be spurred into action by the European Union and the United States who have threatened sanctions against Zimbabwe's ruling party, but would need to work in consultation with Harare's neighbours, Raftopoulos said. He added that minimum measures by SADC, such as setting preconditions for what it would deem a free and fair election, would be "a huge step for the region".

According to Bidi Munyaradzi, director of the human rights group ZimRights, "we have already dismissed all domestic channels of appeal. As civil society we can only revert to international and regional bodies for support".

He told IRIN in a recent interview that "although ZimRights does not actually support general sanctions, the Commonwealth and SADC should put pressure on the Zimbabwean government to ensure the immediate restoration of the rule of law. [Election] observers should be here now, instead of later."

In the worsening political violence, the MDC has accused ruling ZANU-PF party militants of the murder of four of its members over the Christmas period. At least one ZANU-PF supporter was also killed. Last week, Sekai Holland, a senior MDC official, brought three severely injured supporters to hospital in Harare whom she claimed had been kidnapped and tortured by national service officers.

"Some of them had their hamstrings and tendons cut, others have been chopped all over their bodies," Holland was quoted by the London-based Daily Telegraph as saying.

The government has touted its national service scheme as an initiative to provide unemployed youths with skills training. However, critics allege that instead, the Border Gezi training camp in Mount Darwin - named posthumously after one of Mugabe's most loyal ministers - is turning out politically indoctrinated "shock troops" for ZANU-PF. They, the war veterans and the police, are expected to spearhead Mugabe's recent call for "total war" against the opposition.

Meanwhile, Britain's Observer reported on Sunday that a Zimbabwean dissident who was refused asylum and sent home was beaten and tortured by security police.

Gerald Muketiwa, an MDC supporter, had his asylum claim turned down and was deported on 16 December. He arrived in Zimbabwe a day later despite protests from human rights groups. Muketiwa was picked up at the airport by secret police, but later managed to escape through a police station window. Muketiwa has since fled to a neighbouring country and relatives who helped him flee have been beaten by security officers looking for the activist, the newspaper said.

It reported that other Zimbabwean asylum seekers with links to the MDC are also awaiting deportation from Britain after having their claims turned down, despite evidence of the killing of opposition figures. It interviewed dissidents in detention awaiting deportation who said they were scared to return home.

"We are expecting to see an escalation in violence in areas that are considered contested," Raftopoulos said. "There is no doubt MDC will not be able to restrain their people indefinitely," he added.

Concern by the opposition that the government would respond to retaliation by MDC militants with a state of emergency, has to an extent been superseded by the fear surrounding a series of draconian pieces of legislation awaiting parliamentary approval.

Raftopoulos and Munyaradzi said that when passed, Zimbabwe's opposition would effectively be operating under emergency regulations. The Public Order and Security Bill, the Electoral Act Amendment Bill, the Labour Relations Bill and the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Bill would "outlaw all opposition", Raftopoulos said.