HUGH NEVILL, Harare | Sunday 6.30pm.
MORE than 25000 excited opposition supporters turned out for a rally outside Zimbabwe’s capital on Sunday to hear opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai promise them victory in next weekend’s parliamentary elections.
The crowd dwarfed the approximately 4,000 ruling party supporters who turned out to listen to President Robert Mugabe at a Harare rally on Saturday, and the excitement in the air was palpable as the masses in the Rufaro football stadium in the high density suburb of Mbare swayed and chanted, sensing victory.
“The Movement for Democratic Change will win this election,” opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai promised them.
Political violence throughout the southern African nation has resulted in at least 30 deaths since February — the vast majority of them opposition supporters — and hundreds of others have been beaten up.
Nine human rights groups accused the government and the ruling party on Friday of mounting a campaign of terror to smash the opposition, indulging in “murder, torture, beatings, setting people on fire, rapes, kidnappings, arson and various forms of intimidation.”
Tsvangirai said that after his election victory he would set up a national commission to probe the violence.
“We will give amnesty to those who tell the truth … We do not seek revenge,” he said. “We seek the truth and healing for a nation tortured for too long.”
As supporters waved huge cut-outs of an outspread hand — the MDC greeting — Tsvangirai declared: “We will pull our troops out of the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC – where they are fighting alongside President Laurent Kabila’s army against rebels backed by Rwandan and Ugandan troops).”
The 47-year-old opposition leader, a trade unionist who has been detained twice by the Mugabe government, said he would also set up a national defence council to make recommendations on transforming the defence forces into “protectors of the people.”
Mugabe has made attacks against white Zimbabweans a main theme of his campaign, but Tsvangirai declared: “Zimbabwe’s strength lies in racial and ethnic diversity. We want national integration — we are not interested in racism in reverse. Our strength comes from our cultural and ethnic diversity.”
The MDC is contesting all 120 electorates, but its candidates have been unable to campaign in many of them because of the violence. Mugabe appoints another 30 MPs, giving his party a huge advantage. — AFP