Same old dull Zanu PF tricks PDF Print E-mail
Muckraker reports
Zimbabwe Independent
24 March 2005

HAS it occurred to Zanu PF that every time they pull one of their election stunts the public become increasingly indifferent?
Warning was given that a stunt would be forthcoming by Webster Shamu in the Sunday Mail. The MDC had been training Zimbabweans living in South Africa to ?unleash violence? in order to discredit the election, he claimed.
?The alleged hooligans and thugs have been given instructions on how to perpetrate violence,? he said.
Then predictably, the next day the Herald carried a headline announcing the arrest of five MDC youths who were accused of being a ?terror group? trained in South Africa to ?unleash a reign of terror? in Zimbabwe.
How many people believe this rubbish any more? Don?t we recall almost identical stories ahead of the 2000 and 2002 elections?
What happened to those ?plots?? The evidence evaporated once the election was over just as it did in the Tsvangirai treason case!
The MDC replied to the Herald?s silly story saying they had seen it all before.
?For instance, on the eve of the March 2002 presidential poll, 17 army ?deserters? were paraded on ZBC. The Mugabe regime claimed that the 17 ?deserters? had been arrested for plotting to cause disruption ahead of the poll. No evidence was ever produced to support this claim. After the election the issue of the ?17 deserters? and their alleged crimes was never mentioned again by the regime.
?In November 2001, five MDC activists were arrested for the murder of war veteran Cain Nkala. At the time Mugabe claimed that their arrest proved that the MDC was a party bent on using violent means to achieve its political objectives. After being held in prison for over two years, and subjected to torture, all five were acquitted last year.?
As for the MDC training Zimbabweans to ?unleash violence?, which party is it that has a record of unleashing violence against its opponents? Which party has been using youth militias to impose its will on voters?
The police helpfully claimed that according to their investigations ?the MDC wanted to commit acts of violence so that Zanu PF and the government of Zimbabwe would be viewed as perpetrators of violence?.
Who was responsible for the murder of Talent Mabika and Tichaona Chiminya? What has happened to their killers? Who tortured Gabriel Shumba and what has happened to those responsible for the torture and subsequent death of Tonderayi Machiridza?
Who were the very real perpetrators of state violence in those cases and why have they not been brought to justice?
Please, no more ?impish? stunts just because an election is pending. It all looks like smoke-and-mirrors to even the most gullible readers.
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