Morgan Tsvangirai faces pleas to return home on Home Services

May

Morgan Tsvangirai faces pleas to return home

posted by admin in Home Delivery

On the streets of Harare, sympathisers with the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party said they understood why Mr Tsvangirai had stayed away since voting in the first round of the election five weeks ago.

But now that he had been officially declared the winner, albeit by too small a margin to avoid a second round, they said it was time for him to come back from South Africa, where he has spent much of his time since, in between travelling abroad to lobby for international pressure on Mr Mugabe to step down.

Another man near the headquarters of the MDC said: “Morgan must come home to comfort people who are beaten. We know he will come when he is finished his business there. I want to see him, we will feel a bit better then.”

Mr Tsvangirai is meeting his national executive committee in South Africa this weekend to decide whether to take part in the run-off election, supposed to take place before May 19.

If he does not, Mr Mugabe, 84, will be sworn in for a further five years in power despite the humiliation of being beaten in the first round. On Saturday, officials said no decision had been made.

The MDC has accused election officials of using the protracted recount to rig the results, which showed that Mr Tsvangirai won 47.9 per cent of the vote to Mr Mugabe’s 43.2 per cent.

The party says Mr Tsvangirai in fact won the election outright, with more than 50 per cent.

Even those who were once among Mr Mugabe’s most vociferous supporters are turning against him, appalled by the violence unleashed against suspected opposition voters.

Wilfred Mhanda, one of Mr Mugabe’s commanders during the Seventies bush war, accused the security forces of perpetrating an “orgy of violence”, backed up by rogue war veterans, youth militia and party supporters.

“The Mugabe regime descended on the defenceless people of Zimbabwe as retribution for voting for change,” he said.

“Command structures for the campaign of violence are now fully operational, particularly in the rural areas.

“Mugabe’s illegitimate and repressive rule has now degenerated into a fascist dictatorship reminiscent of Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge reign of terror.

“It is a crime against humanity - and an abomination for former liberation fighters to indulge in retributive atrocities and human rights abuses against the very people they fought to liberate.”

Doctors and nurses treating victims of what is fast approaching open civil war estimate that around 7,000 people have been injured in violence against the MDC.

At least 700 victims of beatings and torture have been treated since the election, and medical practitioners estimate that these represent just 10 per cent of the total.

One state registered nurse said the numbers treated had leapt over the last few days.

“We are particularly worried about those with fractures who are still out there, as their injuries go septic in about a week and there are no drugs in the government hospitals,” he said.

Ambulances could no longer travel into certain areas to pick up the injured, he added.

A spokesman for Unicef, the United Nations’ children’s fund, said there were increasing reports of families fleeing their homes to escape political violence.

A 14-month-old infant admitted to a Harare hospital on Thursday had been beaten unconscious on her mother’s back in an attack by Zanu PF supporters.

The war against civilians is particularly directed against MDC office bearers and has decimated the party’s structures in many rural areas.

About 35 houses in a village near Shamva, 50 miles north of Harare, were burnt and smashed last week.

A district organiser for the MDC whose home was among them said the attack was led by an assistant commissioner in the Zimbabwe Republic Police.

However, he said his community would vote again for the MDC candidate.

“We can’t be forced to vote for hunger, we can’t be forced to vote for poverty,” he said.

“We need jobs and we need bread for our kids, so we will vote again for Morgan Tsvangirai.”