27 October 2009
Harare — Violence and intimidation against members of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) increased sharply within days of the party "disengaging" from Zimbabwe's unity government, MDC spokesman Luke Tamborinyoka told IRIN.
In one incident three armed men accosted MDC security official Edith Mashaire, 32, and tried to force her into a waiting vehicle as she walked towards her office in the capital, Harare, during working hours.
"Two other men, one brandishing an AK-47 rifle and another holding a pistol, approached me and threatened to shoot me. They started assaulting me with their weapons while telling me to get into the truck," Mashaire told IRIN. She screamed to other pedestrians that she was an MDC official and frightened the men off.
"We have received reports of our supporters being beaten up and having their homes set on fire, allegedly by ZANU-PF supporters led by war veterans and members of the army," Tamborinyoka said. President Robert Mugabe is the leader of ZANU-PF, the other wing of the unity government formed in February 2009.
Morgan Tsvangirai, MDC leader and Prime Minister, "disengaged" from the unity government on 16 October in protest over the re-arrest of the party's treasurer and deputy agricultural minister designate, Roy Bennett, which had "brought home the fiction of the credibility and integrity of the transitional government".
Teachers targeted
Violence has erupted in Mashonaland Central Province, once a ZANU-PF stronghold in the north of the country. "The violence has intensified in rural areas ... Also affected are close to 100 teachers who have fled from the province," Tamborinyoka said.
"Some of the biggest victims in this ongoing cycle of violence are children, because they have nobody to teach them," he told IRIN. ZANU-PF supporters have accused the teaching profession of being allied to the MDC, and teachers have been told that since their party, the MDC, had pulled out of the government, they were now considered enemies of ZANU-PF.
"The violence is spreading to many parts of the country like Mashonaland West and East [provinces], Manicaland [province in the east] and Masvingo [province in the south] - all former ZANU-PF strongholds - and even in central Harare. We believe that ZANU-PF is retaliating after our party disengaged from the government two weeks ago," Tamborinyoka said.
At the weekend, heavily armed police and soldiers raided a house used by MDC officials and accused the group of stealing weapons from army barracks in Harare. Tamborinyoka said recent events showed all the hallmarks of a crackdown on the MDC and its supporters. "Recently, a brigadier-general pointed a gun at one of our members of parliament and threatened to shoot him."
ZANU-PF youth militia deployed in rural areas
A special audit report on ministerial accounts has also revealed that the youth development ministry employed 10,277 ZANU-PF youth militia since May 2008, who were subsequently deployed to rural areas.
The period of recruitment, which began after ZANU-PF lost its majority in parliament for the first time since independence from Britain in 1980, coincided with escalating violence against MDC supporters, including incidents of murder, rape, torture and displacement, during the second round of the presidential ballot in 2008.
Tsvangirai got the majority of votes in the first round of the presidential poll but narrowly missed securing the 50-plus-one votes required for an outright win. He withdrew from the run-off presidential vote in protest against alleged state-sponsored violence. Mugabe thus won unopposed, but international observers dismissed the poll as invalid.
"The appointees [youth militia] were not subjected to a medical examination, as required by the public service regulations, declarations of official secrets were not completed, and there were no staff files opened at either the ministry headquarters or provincial centres," Tamborinyoka said.
War collaborators
Raymond Majongwe, secretary-general of the Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe, said ZANU-PF youth militia, working as "youth or ward officers", were harassing teachers in schools.
"Sometimes they talk about the need to 'teach children the correct history of the country', and are going as far as appointing school prefects," Majongwe told IRIN.
In the past two months "war collaborators" - people who assisted guerrilla fighters during the war of independence in the 1970s and remain staunch ZANU-PF supporters - have been holding meetings across the country, raising fears of an increase in violence. Zimbabwe's defence minister, Emmerson Mnangagwa, recently addressed one of the meetings.
[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations ]
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When you write "- Yet Zimbabwe is being subjected to another DIVIDE AND CONQUER scheme", do you mean Mugabe's scheme of dividing his people and turning Zimbabweans against each other ?
Fredion;
Don't be silly and stupid! Can you not see who the author is talking about? How can one conquer oneself? How can President Mugabe, who has worked for more than 80 years, actually his entire life, for the unity of the people of Zimbabwe, freeing them from oppression, colonialism, slavery, subjugation and what have you, giving us the right to determine our own destination, economically empowering us and encouraging us to be self-confident and challenge interference from external forces want to divide us - the same people he has worked and sacrificed for?
The only person or people who want to divide and conquer other races are those that believe themselves to be superior? Only white people on this earth think they are more equal than other people. That is why they parceled out, to themselves, Africa and other parts of the world at that racist Berlin Conference. They did it then - divide and conquer - and they want to do it again now with the help of Tsvangirai.
So you should stop behaving like a child and a retarded child at that and start looking at the bigger picture of the Zimbabwe situation and see who is hostile to us as Zimbabweans. Tsvangi and his fellow sellouts are just being used by external hostile forces to divide us and have us conquered once again.
Sellouts have existed since time immemorial, thus, we should not be surprised that Tsvangi and his western (CIA & MI6) created and sponsored MDC party are just puppets of those who colonized us yesterday and want to continue dominating us economically, socially, politically and culturally, at this time and age.
It's idiots like you "uplift?"who are the greatest threat to peace in Zimbabwe.With your half baked,uninformed veiw of life and it's bias towards a ruinous regime because it(regime) fools you into thinking they are doing it for you HA,HA,BLOODY,HA
"Uplift"
Why are you back here? Everyone already knows that you post lies, I've already shown everyone here that your posts are meaningless....
Or do you want to prove that someone who is "black" "invented" one thing or another...........
Well, the "white people" divided North and South Vietnam so well that now there is only Vietnam.......
How exactly did the "white people" divide and conquer Timor? Isn't Timor part of Malaysia?
Leave, just leave..........
Or do I need to put a post together showing your idiocy again for all to see.
Yes! Life is Fun!
Here we go again "Uplift"........
You posted:
"8. FINALLY HERE’S SOME ENCOURAGING WORDS FOR US WHO ARE WAITING FOR THIS STORM TO PASS : Jeremiah, chapter 50 : 9
For, behold, I will raise and cause to come up against Babylon AN ASSEMBLY OF GREAT NATIONS FROM THE NORTH COUNTRY: and they shall set themselves in array against her; from there she shall be taken: their arrows shall be as of a mighty expert man; none shall return in vain."
I would like to point out that: first of all, Babylon was in Iraq ans was the antagonist of ancient Israel, NOT the people of Zimbabwe. Next, Babylon/Iraq actually WAS taken by an "Assembly of Nations from the North Country" a couple of years ago, or, don't you read the news much?
I want to ask you, explicitly, exactly WHO is the "Assembly of Great Nations"? Exactly WHO is the "North" Country? It would seem to me that most of the countries of the "North" are already somewhat arrayed against Babylon (a.k.a. Zimbabwe)?
You went on in your usual ignorant blather to post Daniel 11:14,
"And in those times there shall (be?) many (who?) stand up against the king of the south (AMERICA / BABYLON ): ALSO the ROBBERS OF OUR PEOPLE shall exalt themselves to establish the vision; BUT THEY SHALL FALL !"
Since WHEN is the United States a "kingdom" of the "South"? Can you read a freaking map? Where did you learn geography (or anything else for that matter)? Or is Mugabe somehow your "King of the South"?
In case you haven't looked at a globe recently, "Babylon" in the land of Iraq is NORTH of Zimbabwe, as is the United States!
You can't even interpret Scripture properly! Or did people of African descent "invent" scripture too?
Your posts are a waste of the internet! Why do you post inconherent and false interpretations of what someone else says? But again, people like you make up "facts" to suit your arguments. Why else would you copy & paste a diatribe about how "white" people stole "inventions" of "black people" even though I later proved you to be false (with the accompanying links to the relevent web pages).
Your interpretation of Scripture is even false! North is South, East is West, Black is White, Up is Down - go back and finish reading your Marx you idiot (or maybe start with "Animal Farm" if it isn't too intellectually taxing for you)!
Leave us here on AllAfrica to discuss serious matters......... just leave.......
Or do I have to post another long article showing everyone else what an idiot you are?
"Total Empowerment!" Comrade!
By the way......... if the U.S. is so evil (and from your posts I gather you are in the U.S.) why don't you just return to "Der Faderland" and help your own?
"Total Empowerment!" - you schmuck!
We witness again that to talk in Government with zanupf is useless. We see again that to be in partnership with thugs is a waste of time. Everytime Zanupf dont get their way they resort to violence. Useless SADC - the waste of money and time organisation. It is time to tell Mugabe to go, the most hated man in the world. We spit on him in every country. What a party it will be when he goes.
Jeffjedi06;
You, being samunge-munge kanyama kasina muto, are so powerless to have President Mugabe removed from power. I do not expect you to love my President because you are bitter for losing what you got through racism, oppression, subjugation, colonialism and slavery.
But be reminded that we took what rightfully belong to us. We did not go to Europe to take what belongs to Europeans - what we took and are taking belongs to us by right of creation and not because of the color of one's skin.
President Mugabe is a product of Mapfupa a Mbuya Nehanda Nyakasikana. Thus, when the time comes for my president to retire or is called by his so loving GOD, his bones will rise again like those of Mbuya Nehanda – no doubt about that. You can see even now that there will not be a gape because the bones are rising everyday and everywhere in Zimbabwe. We are refusing to be divided and be conquered.
We have seen the CIA and MI6 machinations before and so we are cleverer now than our ancestors who, because of their desire for peace and good neighborliness, were made to believe that white people love us when they in actual fact are our worst enemies.
See all comments (13).
DIVIDE AND CONQUER !!!
1. TIMOR ( East & West )
2. KOREA ( North & South )
3. VIETNAM ( North & South )
4. HISPANIOLA became ( Dominican Republic & Haiti )
I5. INDIA became ( INDIA & PAKASTAN )
6. The Berlin Conference of 1884-1885 AND The Brussels Conference of 1889 – 1890
- DIVIDED ALL THE EXISTING TRIBAL BORDERS OF MANY AFRICAN COUNTRIES –
* Making them into these ARTIFICIAL CONSTRUCTS THEY CALL COUNTRIES
7. ZIMBABWE Has survived up until now the brunt of all this EUROPEAN & FLUNKIES DIRECTED ACTIVITIES..from Cecil Rhodes to the Present Antagonists.
- Yet Zimbabwe is being subjected to another DIVIDE AND CONQUER scheme.
8. FINALLY HERE’S SOME ENCOURAGING WORDS FOR US WHO ARE WAITING FOR THIS STORM TO PASS :
Jeremiah, chapter 50 : 9
For, behold, I will raise and cause to come up against Babylon AN ASSEMBLY
OF GREAT NATIONS FROM THE NORTH COUNTRY: and they shall set
themselves in array against her; from there she shall be taken: their arrows shall
be as of a mighty expert man; none shall return in vain.
[Daniel 11:14 ]]
And in those times there shall many stand up against the king of the south(AMERICA / BABYLON ):
ALSO the ROBBERS OF OUR PEOPLE shall exalt themselves to establish the vision; BUT THEY SHALL FALL !
[ libradio.net ]
[www.gcnlive.com
WAKE UP ! STAY UP MY BROTHERS & SISTERS !
- Life Is a Game. Have Fun. [ Luke 18:17 / Isaiah 11:6 ]