Updated ~16.40: Militia on Rampage in Mbare
Update: ~ 16.40
Latest MDC Press Release:
More than 2,000 youth militia are currently on the rampage in Mbare, central Harare, carrying out random attacks on innocent citizens. Casualty departments in Harare are already receiving injuries from these attacks. Amongst the injuries so far recorded are bayonet wounds, lending credibility to the claims by civil society organisations of military involvement in this campaign of political violence.
This latest incident demonstrates how the militarization of the electoral environment, among other issues, has made the holding of free and fair elections impossible. The MDC has already stated that it will not be contesting in the forthcoming June 27 elections due to this campaign of state-sponsored violence.
In addition, the MDC reiterates its call to regional and African bodies to urgently intervene so that a sustainable solution to the ongoing crisis in Zimbabwe can be achieved.
Today is clearly a dark day in the history of Zimbabwe. When will this terror end?
More to follow as we receive it…
Update: ~ 14.50
We believe the MDC press conference making an announcement on whether they participate in the run-off or not will be held very shortly at 3pm this afternoon in Harare. Reports in the media are that a decision has been taken to not participate (see the links to those reports left by people in the comments).
Another MDC release has said helicopters are patrolling Harare and Bulawayo. We can confirm we heard a helicoptor overhead where we are about twenty minutes ago.
Update: ~ 13.40
I can’t keep up with the sms’s flying in. This is the next update (but please can you still send sms’s on the safety alert in our previous update)
Roadbloack at Lewisham. Battalion troops jogging up Enterprise Road towards Chisipite. Army taken over stadium since morning. Observers turned away.
Update: ~ 13.25 === SAFETY ALERT ===
This sms received with a request that the information is circulated widely for everyone’s safety:
Avoid Samora Machel Avenue and Borrowdale Road in Harare. Riot police there with tear gas. Army are present. Zanu thugs are stoning cars. Please pass on.
We’ve put this out on twitter but we believe most of our twitter subscribers are probably people outside Zimbabwe. Please can you all forward the message back to everyone you know here, in Zimbabwe to warn them to keep safe.
Update: ~ 12.40
Just as I posted the last item this came in as a Press Release from the MDC:
Thousands of ZANU PF youth militia armed with iron bars, sticks and other weapons have attacked journalists and forced election observer teams to flee from the venue of the MDC scheduled rally. Police are firing tear gas.
The militia have also attacked innocent Zimbabweans who are at the same venue. At least two MDC supporters have been rushed to hospital with serious injuries and others remain unaccounted.
The militia were bused to the venue as early as 0300hrs and their number keeps increasing.
The violent nature of the regime now knows no boundaries, even election observers are now targets of the brutality. Now more than ever the region and the continent need to send a clear message to the Mugabe regime that violence is unacceptable and the will of the people of Zimbabwe must be respected. The calls that have already been made by some African leaders are most welcome, but more voices are certainly needed. The people of Zimbabwe need to know that their brothers and sisters in the region and the continent are with them in the struggle against this dictatorship, in the same way they were with them in the struggle against imperialism and colonialism.
Update: ~12.25
An sms just received says that journalists have been beaten and Pan African Parliamentarian observers have been forced to leave the stadium by Zanu PF militia. Apparently there are some injured Zimbabweans at the venue.
Original: posted 10.35
We’re gettings calls that Zanu PF have deployed more than 1,000 youth militia in Harare ahead of the MDC rally planned for 2pm today (Glamis Stadium).
A court late last week overturned a police ban on the rally and Morgan Tsvangirai had said he plans to attend. The MDC have said
Thousands of armed ZANU PF youth militia have violently occupied the MDC rally venue at Harare show grounds to disrupt the rally which the High Court granted.
It’s simply incredible and shows how threatened Robert Mugabe is by the poll.
This information was also sent out on our Twitter account. Create your own Twitter account and link to ours to receive alerts via your cell phone.
June 22nd, 2008 11:14
Robert Mugabe will no doubt use up his last trump card as he well knows he has to go and by that I mean he needed to go long ago. All I pray is that God will take control of the situation and that no more harm comes to any one.Let the voices of the people be heard against all odds, stand tall, stay strong and believe that there is no time better than now to end this nightmare.
June 22nd, 2008 13:21
I am enraged by the reports in this Chinese Newspapaer. The Editor ‘An Lu’ obviously has not been to Zimbabwe and has only got copies of the Herald to read. Could someone send her another newspaper?
Their web site
http://www.chinaview.cn
Articles released this afternoon
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-06/22/content_8417922.htm
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-06/22/content_8418021.htm
June 22nd, 2008 14:15
New report that Tsangirai is pulling out of the election
Link: http://africa.reuters.com/wire/news/usnWEA9934.html
June 22nd, 2008 14:16
The BBC are anouncing that Morgan will not stand; if this is even sourced from the MDC, I would assume that the announcement is a bluff in order to stop the violence in Harare. MDC Press conf shortly.
The idea seems unthinkably destructive to me. Would anyone here have more hope for such a decision?
June 22nd, 2008 14:18
If the latest news is true, it is a great pity that Morgan has decided to pull out of the run-off next Friday. Mugabe’s credibility has already evaporated, and Zanu-PF is already sharply divided. Naturally, the people fear to vote, but if this fear could have been overcome, Mugabe and his corrupt regime would have been toppled for sure.
May God continue to show us the way, and bless Zimbabwe.
June 22nd, 2008 14:23
[13:21:47] Mandebvhu says: Roy Bennett confirms MDC pull-out…
June 22nd, 2008 14:25
Hi Sokwanele
This is all very disturbing news.
I am also wondering if this report i just read is true: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7467990.stm
Nana
June 22nd, 2008 14:33
From the Bearded Man
“My contact assured me that a GNU is NOT on the cards”.
If this is so..what is the next plan?
June 22nd, 2008 14:37
And now?! Just heard the news of the MDC withdrawing from the Presidential Election.
I want to understand, and goodness I’ve been sickened at the violence pain endured by the good folk back home from MDC, but I just can’t.
Mugabe can’t surely do IT YET AGAIN. The Rhodesians gave in because they couldn’t stand the pain that was bleeding the country dry, and now the MDC has succumbed after all this effort and courage and are sending the same message out.
And the message is clear – POWER TO EVIL, THE BIGGEST FIST, THE BIGGEST THIEF AND LIAR. POWER TO THE DEVIL HIMSELF.
That is what everyone will hear, and worse still will be how they will have to carry on living with.
Sad – very sad…. Please, Morgan, have a powerful trick up your sleeve because that savage Mugabe can’t possibly be allowed to carry on this way, and you were close – so very close!
June 22nd, 2008 14:46
It is true that there will be an announcement at a press conference – apparently due to be held at about 3pm today. We have seen and heard the reports as well but are waiting to hear it from Morgan Tsvangirai’s mouth. There must be more to this than we know yet. Let’s wait and see.
Hope
June 22nd, 2008 14:51
Info from “The Bearded Man”
Armed soldiers and police in full riot gear have taken over the venue
of the MDC rally.
Along Samora Machel ave, fully armed riot police have mounted a road
block. On Enterprise road towards Chisipite Batallion troops are
jogging up the road going into central Harare.
At Lewisham police are stopping people from coming into Harare.
In Borrowdale riot police and ZANU PF militia have also mounted
another roadlock and ZANU PF youth militia are stoning cars.
In Bulawayo and Harare military helicopters are flying around the city.
Zimbabwe clearly is under military rule.
June 22nd, 2008 14:59
The only thing that can stop the madness whether there is a run-off or not, is a UN peacekeeping force.
May God hear our prayers for your safety.
June 22nd, 2008 15:01
Oh my, I really hope it is not true that MDC/MT is pulling out. It is on newspaper websites all over the world now. At first I hoped it was a false rumour by Zanu PF but now I don’t know anymore. How sad…
June 22nd, 2008 15:11
Quote from MT via the “Bearded Man”
he said at the beginning that he will not be part of this WAR – election results have already been determind by Bob and Mugabe has declared war. and MDC will not be part of it says MT
Seen on Al Jazeera
June 22nd, 2008 15:12
link http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7467990.stm
June 22nd, 2008 15:19
From Tsvangirai’s own mouth: The MDC will not contest the election.
June 22nd, 2008 15:30
Tsvangirai quits run-off
http://www.news24.com/News24/Africa/Zimbabwe/0,,2-11-1662_2344914,00.html
Harare – Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai quit the country’s bitterly fought run-off election on Sunday, saying the vote cannot be free and fair.
“We in the MDC cannot ask them to cast their vote on the 27th when that vote would cost them their lives,” Tsvangirai told reporters.
“We will no longer participate in the violent illegitimate sham of an election process.”
June 22nd, 2008 15:36
Perhaps clinging onto the last vestiges of hope here, but this could be calculated to pull the international community into the fray with more committement than the rhetoric previously shown. At this juncture the international community can withdraw and thereby acknowledge that the principles of democracy they purport to uphold has been beaten by anarchy and violence. Or they can press forward to ensure that democratic processes must be seen to win. Furthermore, this development in Zimbabwe has sent the message to despots and dictators that violent repression justifies the means to the end. Can the UN, SADC, EU, US, UK, Religious leaders, Human Rights lobbyists and free citizens and governments of the world afford and allow such a message to be made as clear as the situation in Zimbabwe has now demonstrated.
June 22nd, 2008 20:13
MDC leadership pull out of run-off.after being warned for months..Without commonsense, realism or a properly considered PLAN B ….ordinary citizens were mislead…DEFEND YOUR VOTE etc etc
If only people had listened months ago to voices of reason…if only people had taken seriously the point that dictators are not moved by weakness…that a power struggle is not a game …not for weak hearts or political ‘children’ who have nothing beyond pie in the sky rhetoric of impending Zanu defeat and international community pressure… Any serious people that are interested in seeing the hell in Zimbabwe end and Zimbabwe free please contact
r.evolution@hotmail.co.uk
June 22nd, 2008 21:08
The MDC has done everything in a legal and civilised manner as befits a democratic leadership. Their commitment to these principles has generated regional and global support against the atrocities of the Mugabe regime. The obstructive behaviour of certain African countries, backed by allies such as China and Russia, have however contributed either directly or, at the very least, hampered efforts to find appropriate solutions for the political situation in Zimbabwe.
June 23rd, 2008 09:39
To Anon (post 19)
What would you prefer they had done?
Push forward with full scale war?
With what?
Surely that would spell the end for thousands of innocent lives – even more devastating than the horrendous deaths and maimings we have seen so far.
This campaign cannot be won for the MDC by force – not now, anyway – the resources are not there.
June 23rd, 2008 11:37
ZiminLondon: you have correctly understood that Anon is an advocate for an armed solution and he’s looking for people who will plan and discuss it with him. He has left another comment along those lines and I am not publishing his comment. You, and others, can email him if you’d like to discuss his ideas with him.
Sokwanele does not advocate that Zimbabwean civilians should be trained to go to war and we won’t allow our blog or comments to be used as a platform for things we don’t believe in. We are not going to publish any more comments along those lines at all.