Zimbabwe police raid opposition HQ, pressure mounts on Mugabe
Police raided the headquarters of Zimbabwe's opposition party Monday, a day after its leader withdrew from a presidential run-off vote against Robert Mugabe because of pre-poll violence condemned by the international community.
More than 10 police officers, some in riot gear, carried out the raid on the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) offices in Harare, removing staffers and bundling them into a bus, witnesses said.
Opposition spokesman Nelson Chamisa said the police operation was "an act of desperation and frustration" on the part of the government after MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai announced he was pulling out of Friday's run-off poll.
Tsvangirai said increasing violence had made a free and fair poll impossible. The opposition says more than 80 of its supporters have been killed in a campaign of intimidation ahead of the vote.
The announcement prompted the international community to step up the pressure on Mugabe, but the veteran leader's ZANU-PF party accused Tsvangirai of playing political games and insisted that Friday's election would go ahead.
The party was "not treating the threats seriously," Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa said, adding that Tsvangirai had repeatedly threatened to withdraw in the past but never seen it through.
"We are proceeding with our campaign to romp to victory on Friday," Chinamasa was quoted as saying by the government-run newspaper, The Herald.
The Zimbabwe Election Commission said it had yet to formally receive the opposition's formal notice of withdrawal.
A government spokesman urged Tsvangirai to reconsider, saying that his refusal to challenge Mugabe would be "regrettable."
"I will urge him or his party to think twice so that they take part in this democratic process," deputy information minister Bright Matonga said on South African radio.
"It (the withdrawal) will not be good for the people of Zimbabwe and for this country."
Tsvangirai beat Mugabe in a first round presidential vote in March, but official results did not give him the absolute majority required to avoid a run-off.
The MDC leader insists he won the first round outright.
With regional governments facing increased pressure to resolve the political crisis, Western criticism of Mugabe's rule intensified, as Britain and Australia labeled his leadership illegitimate and Washington said it would bring the issue before the UN Security Council.
"The government of Zimbabwe and its thugs must stop the violence now," White House spokesman Carlton Carroll said in a statement.
"Mugabe cannot be allowed to repress the Zimbabwean people forever," he said.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon called Tsvangirai's withdrawal a "deeply distressing development" and a bad omen for the country's future, his spokesman said.
African Union Commission Chairman Jean Ping voiced "grave concern" over the opposition's move as well as violence ahead of the vote.
Efforts to resolve the crisis pressed ahead, however, with a high-level South African mediation team in Zimbabwe, a spokesman for President Thabo Mbeki said.
"They are engaging with all parties in Zimbabwe," Mukoni Ratshitanga said.
In announcing his decision, Tsvangirai said he could not ask supporters to cast ballots "when that vote would cost them their lives" and that his party would not participate in a "violent illegitimate sham of an election process."
Mugabe has blamed the opposition for the violence and threatened to arrest its leadership over it. The United Nations, however, has said the president's supporters were to blame for most of the unrest.
Tsvangirai's withdrawal would hand victory by default to Mugabe, who has ruled Zimbabwe since independence from Britain in 1980 and, according to critics, presided over its decline.
Mugabe is accused by critics of leading the once model economy to ruin and trampling on human rights. The country has the world's highest inflation rate and is experiencing major food shortages.
AFP
