Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has said he will call on the African Union and SADC to deploy a peacekeeping force to protect voters in elections that are expected to be held in Zimbabwe next year.
Tsvangirai told party supporters at a rally in Chitungwiza on Sunday that he would stand as candidate, adding that Zimbabwe should invite international observers and a peacekeeping force to ensure that the next national election is free and fair.
'I am ready to stand for elections but we want a peacekeeping force to protect people during the election period,' Tsvangirai said, amid reports of fresh violence against MDC activists allegedly by ZANU PF supporters, mostly in rural areas.
A peacekeeping force can contribute to the the supervision of elections but can only be deployed at the request of a government or parties to the conflict, raising fears that Robert Mugabe will likely block such a move.
No election date has been set yet, but there is a sense that the country is already counting down to presidential, parliamentary and council elections. There are fears ZANU PF are still capable of engaging in a systematic campaign of intimidation and violence, aimed at crushing their political opponents.
On March 29th 2008 Zimbabweans went to the polls and changed history. For the first time since Independence in 1980, the Zanu PF party lost its majority in parliament and Mugabe lost the presidential vote. The regime immediately embarked on a campaign of violence and reprisal attacks against the civilian population.
The election re-run was marred by massive violence against the MDC. The party claimed that hundreds of its supporters were killed, tens of thousands were tortured and at least 500,000 people were uprooted from their homes in the orgy of violence waged by war veterans, aided by soldiers and ZANU PF youths. These events eventually led to the withdrawal of Tsvangirai from the poll, leaving Mugabe as the 'winner' of, effectively, a one-candidate election.
Analysts told us it that in the next election it will be crucial that the inclusive government invite all willing election monitors, whether domestic or international, to observe the election process both on the voting days and in the crucial run-up period which has traditionally seen the vast majority of violence and intimidation.
Human rights lawyer Gabriel Shumba, a victim of torture by Mugabe's CIO, said the AU and SADC will send in observers and monitors, rather than a peacekeeping force.
'I don't think Mugabe will ever agree to a peacekeeping force being deployed to Zimbabwe because he will argue that there is no conflict. Mugabe doesn't like anything that that will block his usual tactics of rigging an election through vote manipulation and violence,' Shumba said.
Three years ago, SADC launched its own peacekeeping force, comprising the military, the police and civilian components of all the 14 regional states. Known as the SADC Brigade (SADCBRIG), it was constituted under the AU protocol on peace and security requiring all regional economic communities to have standby peace keeping forces.
The purpose of the SADCBRIG is to participate in missions, including performing observations and monitoring, peace support, interventions for peace and security restoration in grave circumstances at the request of a member state.
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Typical of one who is Mentally Confused by Colonialists (MDC), to not recognize that Zim Patriots have ALREADY been creating and 'keeping the peace' in Zimbabwe.
If Zim Patriots needed help with peace creation and peace keeping in Zimbabwe, then THEY will make such request from nations who need so-called 'peacekeepers' of their own!
Under no circumstances must Zim Patriots allow ignorant, cowardly and treasonous traitors to lead the nation that Zim Patriots restored from the criminal colonizers. Not in this era!
Under no circumstances with Zim Patriots stand idly by while the mentally enslaved allow racist and criminal colonialists to dominate and plunder Africans, and further derail the Peace, Progress & Prosperity of Africans IN AFRICA!
Tsvangirai has no political horse sense, none whatsoever.
Imagine: a 'politico,' a dense one, to boot, calling for INVADER FORCES to keep "the peace" during elections unannounced as yet. By the "peace" this deranged tool of INVADERDOM means the protection of "voters."
Politics aside---whether or nay you like Mugabe and ZANU/PF, Tsvangirai's request, rather SUPPLICATION, manifests a bottomless and robust disrespectful attitude towards all things African and, without variance, his sickening deification of so-called "Western Civilization" or, in my lexicon, INVADERDOM.
AFRICANS, is there war in the democratic State of Zimbabwe?
AFRICANS, will YANKEELAND OR its poodle, INVADER BRITAIN, call on outsiders to monitor their historically problematic elections?
AFRICANS, O AFRICANS, TIME IT IS that we, patriotic Africans, drive the fifth columnists among us under the bus---RHETORICALLY; THE PEOPLE OF AFRICA will deal with them REALISTICALLY, if you get my flow.
O, YOUNG AFRICANS, TIME IT IS to send INVADERDOM to God's hell.
Accordingly, in the name of our ANCESTORS, I now declare Tsvangirai a lost son of Africa, a renegade, a fifth columnist, a bootlicker of INVADERDOM and, finally, but without limitation, a deadly snake.
Cheers from OPERATION AFRICAN PRIDE AND DIGNITY.
Informative article, thank you.
Is Zimbabwe: Tsvangirai Calls for Peacekeeping Force to Monitor Elections in a distraction from the issue of removing Sanctions genuine when no date is set for elections?
It appears the Honorable Prime Minister of Zimbabwe Morgan Richard Tsvangirais Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) has no faith in his own government, his constituency, and the electoral system. To now solicit a request for an outside peacekeeping force appears contentious. The PMs continuous request for outside assistance, however helpful, before an election date is set demonstrates a lack of commonsensical political reasoning.
The British Prime Ministers remark last month suggesting, inferring, and alleging MDCs collusion with initiating and/or leveraging SANCTIONS against their own government was an expose par excellence.
In my humble opinion the Prime Minister Tsvangirai needed a distraction from Zimbabwes ruinous and illegally imposed SANCTIONS so a new headline was needed as this article Zimbabwe: Tsvangirai Calls for Peacekeeping Force to Monitor Elections suggest.
Was the British Prime Minister Milliband now questioning MDC's loyalty as a colonial surrogate? For MDC is this a sign that when youre neutral you will end up disrespected from all ends, due to lack of loyalty and/or confused loyalties? Does MDCs leadership realize these are colonial giants they are in collusion with?
Should the call for peacekeeping troops be interpreted as a decoy or smokescreen from the number one thru twenty crisis in Zimbabwe: The removal of all illegal SANCTIONS? Why not espouse the issue of illegally imposed SANCTIONS by the West as a powerpoint and cause célèbre? President Obama said sanctions are necessary due to corporate Americas national security.
The US/EU is saying Zimbabwe should be theirs by Manifest Destiny; and, they need surrogates to carry out its manifested destination. Is MDC standing in the middle of two freight trains destined for a head on collision?
The possibility of the US Democratic or Republican Party in collusion with a foreign government to enforce financial and economic hardships, sanctions, and freezing of assets against an opposing partys leadership would be considered rebellious in essence and unfaithfulness by implication (notice the nicety of my words).
Ignoring the number one thru twenty political crisis in Zimbabwe, SANCTIONS, will cause all patriotic Zimbabweans to put their countrys Patriotism before the international integrationist.
In America integrationalism before becoming self-governing, self-sufficient, self-independent, and self-loving will destroy the spirit of self worth and entrepreneurism: the basic essentials for true democracy. This act of premature integration happened or has happened in Black America resulting in a 40 year setback in progress.
Lloyd Whitefield Butler, Jr. Descendant of Enslaved Landless Africans in America
IT IS SHAMEFUL, DISGRACEFUL AND UNPARTRIOTIC FOR MORGAN TSANGIRAI TO ASK FOR AN EXTERNAL FOR AN ELECTION. HIS PARTY FOLLOWERS CAUSE ELECTION PROBLEMS.
Geez, how funny it is to see idiots quaking at the thought of having peacekeeping forces to monitor elections. What are you afraid of? Cannot cheat? Afraid of doing the right thing because doing right is so foreign to you? Those who cheat this time will get their ass kicked.
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