Opposition reports escalating violence in Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe’s opposition said today it was facing escalating violence in the last days before a presidential runoff pitting its leader against long-time President Robert Mugabe.

Victims have been burned alive or turned up dead after being spirited away in trucks, the Movement for Democratic Change said.

The violence, restrictions on opposition campaigning and the arrest of a top opposition leader have sparked concern the June 27 elections will not be free and fair – leading some in the region to question whether the vote should be scrapped in favour of a power-sharing arrangement.

Independent human rights activists, including Amnesty International, have implicated police, soldiers and Mugabe party militants in the violence.

Amnesty said today that 12 bodies had been found across the country recently and that most of the victims showed signs of torture. The London-based rights group said the victims appeared to have been abducted by supporters of Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party.

Opposition presidential candidate Morgan Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change said more than 60 of its activists had been killed in recent weeks.

One of the worst single attacks came on Wednesday, when the party said four activists were abducted in Chitungwiza, about 15 miles south of the capital Harare, and assaulted with iron bars, clubs and guns. The victims were forced on to trucks and taken away by militias chanting slogans of Mugabe’s party, witnesses said. The bodies were found early today, said opposition spokesman Nelson Chamisa.

Separately, three Chitungwiza opposition councilmen and their families fled their homes and escaped injury when their homes were set alight by petrol bombs Wednesday night, Chamisa said.

Mugabe has denied being responsible for the violence – but also threatened to return the country to war if he did not win the runoff.

Doctors at the main Parirenyatwa hospital in Harare said today they admitted victims injured in assaults in several townships on the outskirts of Harare in recent days.

Residents of Harare’s well-to-do suburbs reported gangs of militants forcing maids and their family members to attend meetings known as “pungwes,” a colloquial term for all-night political indoctrination used by militants since the independence war that swept Mugabe to power in 1980.

On Monday night, Abigail Chiroto, the wife of opposition mayor elect of Harare, and her four-year-old son, Ashley, were seized from their house in the suburb of Hatcliffe, family friends said today. The friends, who did not want to be identified for fear of repercussions, said the two were taken to a nearby farming area where Chiroto’s body was found Tuesday.

The boy, who was left at a nearby police station, told family members that he saw his mother being blindfolded and taken off into the bush. When Chiroto’s body was found, she was still wearing a blindfold. Her body was identified Wednesday by her husband Emmanuel Chiroto who was out of town at the time.

South African President Thabo Mbeki held talks with Tsvangirai and Mugabe in Zimbabwe on Wednesday.

Mbeki, who has steadfastly refused to publicly rebuke Mugabe, left late Wednesday without speaking to reporters. Today he cancelled a press conference in South Africa at the last moment “due to unforeseen circumstances”.

Mbeki’s spokesman, Mukoni Ratshitanga, said he had no comment on Wednesday’s meetings in Harare because Mbeki was not conducting the negotiations in the media.

South African media reported Mbeki was trying to persuade Mugabe and Tsvangirai to call off the runoff and form a government of national unity. The idea has been raised before, but the sticking point appears to be that Tsvangirai refuses to share power with Mugabe, while Mugabe insists on leading any coalition government.