Police raid headquarters of Mugabe's opponents
6/23/2008 - 2:28:43 PMPolice raided Zimbabwe’s opposition party’s headquarters and took away about 60 people following its decision to withdraw from a run-off election against Robert Mugabe.
Spokesman Nelson Chamisa said most of those snatched were women and children who had fled state-sponsored political violence and sought refuge at the Movement for Democratic Change offices.
He said police also seized computers and furniture.
After a similar raid in April, police detained scores of people they accused of being responsible for post-election violence. A court later released them.
In announcing his withdrawal from the run-off MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai said that such harassment and violence against his supporters had made voting impossible. The government says the vote will go ahead.
Roy Bennett, MDC treasurer, said that the party was not turning its back completely on elections.
He called on the Southern African Development Community and the African Union to launch negotiations aimed at bringing members of the opposition and moderate members of Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party together in a transitional authority that would create conditions for free and fair presidential voting.
“We honestly believe that we will move forward to a new round” of elections, Mr Bennett said.
He said Mugabe would not be welcome on the transitional authority or in a future government.
“He’s ruled for 28 years. It’s time he passed the baton on to someone else,” Bennett said. “Even in a transitional government we don’t see any role for him at all.”
The issue of Mugabe’s role – the opposition’s rejection of him and ZANU-PF’s insistence he should lead – is believed to have derailed previous attempts to resolve Mugabe’s crisis by creating a coalition government.
However, Mr Bennett said ZANU-PF would have to yield now in the face of growing international pressure. ZANU-PF, he said, risked being “totally isolated and totally rejected by the African countries as well as the world at large”.