AFP AND OWN CORRESPONDENT, Harare | Monday
ZIMBABWE’S ruling party has warned that it will respond to any attempt to forcibly oust President Robert Mugabe from power with “violence” following opposition calls to remove him.
Nathan Shamuyarira of the governing Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) told state television that his party and government had the capacity to respond to any violence with violence.
“We are going to fight violence with violence in order to protect the people of Zimbabwe,” Shamuyarira said.
Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of Zimbabwe’s main opposition, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), at the weekend told supporters at the party’s first anniversary that Mugabe risked being removed violently from power if he did not heed calls to retire.
“What we would like to tell Mugabe today is that please go peacefully, and if you don’t want to go peacefully we will remove you violently,” the opposition leader said.
But Shamuyarira responded: “It’s a shocking statement coming from an opposition leader who claims to be democratic, what kind of democracy is that? We are not going to sit idle when he [Tsvangirai] is unleashing violence on our people, we are going to reply.
Tsvangirai later tried to downplay his statement when he explained that the violence he was talking about was a mass action his party was planning that would exert pressure on Mugabe to quit.
“If he (Mugabe) remains defiant and continues as he is doing, with the mood in the country, I think he risks the chance of being violently removed by the people. The anger is deep and he should be able to read that. There are many dictators in the world who have had to make an unceremonious exit,” Tsvangirai warned.
Shamuyarira accused the opposition leader of trying to deny the country the democratic procedures of elections, the peace and stability they had enjoyed.
“We are going to reply in order to protect the people of Zimbabwe. We are not going to allow the people to be maimed and killed because of Morgan Tsvangirai’s desire to be in power,” he said.
The MDC won nearly half of the country’s contested 120 seats in parliamentary elections held in June.