Zimbabwe’s opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai warned on Monday of a gathering ”people’s storm” that would battle what he called President Robert Mugabe’s
”civil-military junta”.
In a speech to about 1 000 cheering supporters in a Harare hotel, Tsvangirai called for an alliance of pro-democracy forces to launch a campaign of non-violent activism against Mugabe’s government.
”This alliance will constitute the people’s storm in this final confrontation with the autocracy,” Tsvangirai said.
”What confronts us in Zimbabwe is a dictator who presides over a civil-military junta,” he said.
”We must all synchronise and coordinate an activism in the final showdown against this dictator.”
Tsvangirai called Mugabe’s victory in the March presidential election a ”coup d’etat,” and urged the international community to increase their pressure on the president for a re-run of the poll under international supervision.
The speech came at a public discussion organized by the Public Opinion Institute, a think-tank that conducts independent surveys in Zimbabwe.
Tsvangirai, who leads the three-year-old Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), did not say what kind of activism he envisioned, and urged his supporters against ”adventurism” that could provoke a violent response from government.
Instead, he called for ”non-violent modes of political combat,” saying ”casualties among Zimbabwean citizens must be avoided or minimised.”
”We have acted as a restraining force on people,” Tsvangirai said, referring to his party’s policy of non-violence.
”But now we have reached a stage where it may no longer be possible to keep the lid on,” he said. ”The people cannot take it any longer.”
”Your bullets cannot stop the tide of change,” he said.
”The path to our freedom is still littered with skeletons and the blood of our people. Let us soldier on in courage,” Tsvangirai said.
The MDC has never accepted Mugabe’s victory in the March poll, saying widespread vote fraud and state-sponsored violence had compromised the returns.
After the elections, most western nations imposed sanctions on Mugabe and his inner circle, while the Commonwealth suspended Zimbabwe from its meetings.
At home, Mugabe is presiding over the nation’s worst-ever economic crisis, with inflation soaring to a record high of 123.5% and an estimated 80% of the population living in poverty.
He has staked his political fortunes on a controversial scheme to resettle white-owned farms with blacks, a program plagued by violence and one in which his critics claim has mainly benefited Mugabe’s inner circle.
The resettlement scheme also threatens to worsen an already devastating food shortage, which has left at least six million people — about half the population — threatened by famine, according to UN estimates. – Sapa-AFP