OWN CORRESPONDENT, Harare | Saturday 2.00pm
ZIMBABWE’s main opposition Movement for Democratic Change went into emergency talks on Saturday to consider calling a general strike in the face of escalating political violence against government opponents.
Even as the meeting was being held, a well-billed anti-government rally was being disrupted by a group of war veterans, who chased and beat people who turned up early at the venue, a sports stadium.
Up to 30 veterans of Zimbabwe’s war of independence — armed with iron bars and sticks — descended on the small crowd who had gathered for the “peace rally”, ordered them to disperse and immediately started beating them up, witnesses said.
The rally was organised by the National Constitutional Assembly, a non-governmental coalition of scores of civic and political organisations opposed to the ruling Zanu-PF party. The MDC, several of whose supporters have been killed in the violence, blames the government for sponsoring the unrest.
The meeting of the national council of the MDC is expected to discuss a programme of mass action — including a general strike — against the ongoing violence, and to deliver a strong message to foreign governments to increase pressure on President Robert Mugabe to ensure that parliamentary elections due in the next few months are free and fair.
Tendai Biti, NCA legal secretary and MDC executive official, told a small group of about 100 people who finally made it to the rally not to be intimidated. “We will continue organising marches and rallies,” Biti said. “We will not succumb to this intimidation.” The NCA had called the “peace rally” to highlight the political violence, which has seen at least 18 people, mainly MDC supporters, killed and hundreds beaten, and to call on the government to act against “lawlessness, anarchy and the apparent breakdown of law and order.”
Meanwhile the government has ordered 86 000 people who have dual British and Zimbabwean nationality to surrender their Zimbabwe passports. Reports said the citizenship office issued a statement saying British nationals should have renounced British citizenship under the 1981 British Nationality Act. — AFP