AFP, Cape Town | Thursday
SOUTH African MPs sent to observe Zimbabwe’s general elections in June reported that the ruling Zanu-PF was not solely to blame for violence that killed 32 people in the run-up to the poll.
In a special report due to be debated in parliament on Thursday, the 20 MPs said they “observed that no single party seemed to have a monopoly on the use of violence”.
They also found that “despite incidents of violence and intimidation in the run-up … the result of the parliamentary elections held on 24 and 25 June 2000 broadly reflects the will of the Zimbabwean people”.
This view differs markedly from that of the European Union observer mission which put the blame squarely on ZANU-PF, with mission head Pierre Schori urging that those involved be prosecuted.
Most of those who died in the violence were members of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, which narrowly lost the election, and which has claimed that hundreds of other members were beaten and tortured by ZANU-PF members.
Relatives of three people killed and another who was allegedly assaulted by ZANU-PF thugs last week launched a US $400 million lawsuit against President Robert Mugabe in the United States.
The US Senate is considering a bill that would cut off aid to Zimbabwe, whose government and ruling party — according to the draft legislation — are guilty of “deliberate and systematic violence, intimidation and killings”.
The South African report says the mission received many reports of violence and intimidation, both in Harare and during its visits to the provinces. Some of this violence appeared to be planned, and aimed at intimidating supporters of other parties and creating no-go areas.
In other instances, the violence appeared to be “a more spontaneous result of the heightened political temperature”. The report says there were many allegations of intimidation in rural areas and against farm workers by war veterans, who occupied some 1 500 white-owned farms ahead of the polls. It adds, however, that veterans told the mission that while they had tried to politically “re-educate” farm workers, intimidation was not their aim.
The observer MPs were drawn from the African National Congress as well as opposition parties.