Concern mounts as war vets target embassies and NGOs

Diplomats in Zimbabwe expressed disquiet on Thursday at warnings from self-styled war veterans that foreign embassies would be their next target. “It’s cause for serious concern,” German diplomatic sources in Harare told IRIN. On Monday, Germany’s ambassador to Zimbabwe, Fritz Flimm, had to intervene in an ugly dispute between war veterans and a German educational charity, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung. “I was there and although I was not threatened, these vets behaved very aggressively towards the head of the unit, he was forced to hand over money,” a German diplomat told IRIN. He added that on 20 April, a German NGO operating a feeding programme outside Zimbabwe’s second city of Bulawayo had its food storage facilities pillaged by veterans. War veterans said they had targeted the educational NGO on Monday because they were attempting to resolve a labour dispute currently before Zimbabwe’s courts. But diplomats said that the charity, funded by Germany’s Social Democratic party, had been selected because of it’s educational work with the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU). The veterans’ leader, Chenjerai Hunzvi, warned of action against foreign missions as his followers stepped up attacks against businesses in a move analysts said was a bid to win urban votes and shatter opposition to President Robert Mugabe’s campaign for re-election next year. “Our next target after solving workers’ problems in factories and companies will be to deal once and for all with foreign embassies and NGOs who are funding the MDC,” Hunzvi told the ‘Financial Gazette’. “We will use whatever means we have to deal with these foreign nations here who want to install a puppet regime in Zimbabwe,” Hunzvi said. Hunzvi’s so-called war veterans, many of them too young to have fought the white regime in the former Rhodesia, occupied more than 1,000 of the country’s 4,500 white-owned commercial farms in the run-up to parliamentary elections last year. German diplomats in the capital told IRIN that security would be stepped up in the light of recent attacks and Hunzvi’s warning. Another Western diplomat demanded that Zimbabwe honour its international obligations to protect embassy staff and property. “We are concerned and expect the government of Zimbabwe to meet its international obligations to provide protection at international missions and enforce the rule of law,” he said. Hunzvi did not name the embassies his members would target but the veterans have consistently blamed former colonial power Britain and the United States for the country’s ills. State radio said Mugabe told diplomats at a banquet on Wednesday that Britain was spearheading a campaign with foreign media to orchestrate international criticism against his government’s land reform programme. Britain said it was taking “extremely seriously” Hunzvi’s warning that they would raid embassies of countries suspected of funding Mugabe’s political opponents. “We take these reports extremely seriously and we will be taking them up urgently with the government of Zimbabwe,” a Foreign Office spokesman told Reuters. Meanwhile, a Rural Land Occupiers Bill, was published on Thursday. It seeks to “restrict or suspend” legal proceedings against those who had occupied land by the start of last month. The law, which is virtually assured of passage through the parliament dominated by Mugabe’s ZANU-PF, would overturn court orders against land occupations and prevent further court action, effectively legalising the tenure of occupiers. The draft law would reverse the Zimbabwe Supreme Court’s December instruction to Mugabe to produce a “workable” land reform programme in six months and effectively declaring the land seizure drive unlawful.