Police raid opposition offices in Zimbabwe
HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) - April 3, 2008 Police raided a hotel used by the opposition Movement for
Democratic Change and ransacked some of the rooms. Riot police also
surrounded another hotel housing foreign journalists and took away
several of them, according to a man who answered the phone there.
"Mugabe has started a crackdown," Movement for Democratic
Change secretary-general Tendai Biti told The Associated Press.
"It is quite clear he has unleashed a war."
The New York Times said that its correspondent Barry Bearak was
taken into custody by police.
"We do not know where he is being held, or what, if any,
charges have been made against him," said Bill Keller, executive
editor of the Times. "We are making every effort to ascertain his
status, to assure that he is safe and being well treated, and to
secure his prompt release."
Biti said the raid at the Meikles Hotel targeted "certain
people ... including myself." Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai
was "safe" but had canceled plans for a news conference, Biti
said.
He said that Thursday's clampdown was a sign of worse to follow
but that the opposition would not go into hiding.
"You can't hide away from fascism. Zimbabwe is a small country.
So we are not going into hiding. We are just going to have to be
extra cautious," he said.
While the election commission has issued results for the
parliamentary races held Saturday alongside the presidential race,
it has yet to release any presidential count. A presidential
candidate needs at least 50 percent plus one vote to avoid a
runoff, which would have to be held within 21 days of the first
round.
The opposition says that Tsvangirai won the presidential race
outright, but says it is would take part in a runoff.
Mugabe's Deputy Information Minister Bright Matonga said
Thursday that Mugabe was ready for a runoff, dashing hopes that he
would bow quietly off the national stage he has dominated for 28
years.
"President Mugabe is going to fight. He is not going anywhere.
He has not lost," Matonga said on the British Broadcasting Corp.
"We are going to go hard and fight and get the majority
required."
The 84-year-old Mugabe was shown on state television Thursday
meeting African Union election observers, his first public
appearance since the elections.
Matonga accused the opposition of trying "to get rid of
President Mugabe at all costs and that is what we are going to
fight."
"This election campaign was not a campaign for democracy but a
campaign for regime change," he said, going on to say that the
opposition was sponsored by the West. He said ZANU-PF would go back
and "regroup" and campaign "very vigorously in "a very peaceful
manner."
International concern mounted about the continuing delays.
"We still have not seen the important thing, which is real live
election results," said State Department spokesman Tom Casey. "We
need to see an official tally, see it soon and have assurances made
that this is actually a correct counting of the votes."
"Delays raise serious questions in our minds about what is
going on in the vote counting," he said.
Former U.N. chief Kofi Annan said the continuing delays were
dangerous. He urged the government and the electoral commission to
scrupulously observe the electoral law and "to declare the
election results faithfully and accurately."
"We live in an open world today and indeed the eyes of the
world are on Zimbabwe, on its Electoral Commission, on its
President. I urge them to do the right thing, to respect the
Constitution and to obey the electoral laws. The election results
should be released now," he said.
Mugabe has ruled since his guerrilla army helped force an end to
white minority rule in then-Rhodesia and bring about an independent
Zimbabwe in 1980.
He ordered the often-violent seizures of white-owned commercial
farms, ostensibly to return them to the landless black majority.
Instead, Mugabe replaced a white elite with a black one, giving the
farms to relatives, friends and cronies who allowed cultivated
fields to be taken over by weeds.
Today, a third of the population depends on imported food
handouts. Another third has fled the country and 80 percent is
jobless. Inflation is the highest in the world at more than 100,000
percent and people suffer crippling shortages of food, water,
electricity, fuel and medicine. Life expectancy has fallen from 60
to 35 years.