Accompany me if you will to a meeting convened by District Administrator (DA) Chimedza of the Zaka District, in the lowveld region, south-east of Masvingo. The meeting took place on 22nd October and to it were summoned the local Chiefs from Jerera, Manjirenji and Zaka, together with the new settlers from the area. A few members of the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) were also present.

Roy Bennett

On May 26 two of South Africa's foremost constitutional lawyers will appear in Zimbabwe's Supreme Court to mount the most serious legal challenge yet to the continued incarceration of the country's celebrated prisoner of conscience, Roy Bennett. Due to appear before Zimbabwe's highest court in Harare on Bennett's behalf are Advocates Chaskalson SC and Gauntlett SC.

Roy Bennett was elected Member of Parliament for Chimanimani constituency in the 2000 Parliamentary elections. He is a leading member of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party who enjoys a huge popularity among his rural, almost entirely black, constituents. Fluent in the vernacular he was, until his forcible ejection from his farm in the eastern highlands, a successful coffee farmer, and respected as a good employer who had the interests of his employees very much at heart. Prior to the year 2000 he had been a staunch supporter of ZANU PF but, in response to the increasing levels of corruption and nepotism in the ruling party, he threw his weight behind the fledging opposition movement. Despite receiving death threats from senior ZANU PF politicians, a police commander and the local CIO boss, Bennett stood for the MDC and won by a huge margin.

Sokwanele earlier reported on the signs then emerging of a popular uprising in protest against the patently false election results being announced from the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission in Harare, through Friday and Saturday (April 1st and 2nd). Readers may have wondered what happened to that uprising, or had we got our facts wrong? Today we are able to bring you a report about life on the streets in Zimbabwe’s second city, Bulawayo, through the extremely tense hours following the vote, which helps to explain and put that story into context. Our informants are a number of eyewitnesses, whose individual stories we have combined into one summarised account.