Harare, London | Wednesday
THE Zimbabwe government has lashed out at whites and its main political opposition, accusing them of being behind a suspected anthrax attack at the Harare post office.
Health ministry officials said on Tuesday that two envelopes had been discovered to contain a suspicious powder in the post office’s sorting department after two postal workers had fallen ill. One of the envelopes was reportedly addressed to a senior government official.
The state-controlled Herald newspaper on Wednesday quoted home affairs minister John Nkomo as saying: ”Those responsible for these terrorist attacks are people who formed the MDC (Movement for Democratic Change) and supported it.
”It is obvious that former Rhodesians are involved in these dastardly acts,” he said, referring to the country’s former white minority rulers of the then Rhodesia before Zimbabwean independence in 1980.
Nkomo told the newspaper that the government was taking ”necessary measures to counteract the terrorist activities.”
He said this included a new law — the Public Order and Security Bill — expected to be passed within the next two weeks, which has been condemned by the MDC and human rights activists as tailor-made for stifling dissent ahead of the March election.
”The new law will enable the government to deal with acts of terrorism,” Nkomo said.
Meanwhile, Zanu-PF, smarting from a rare opposition victory in parliament that saw the government’s proposed changes to electoral laws rejected, vowed on Wednesday to reverse the setback in a new vote.
The proposed amendments are viewed by the MDC as a ploy to curb the voting rights of millions of Zimbabweans living abroad — many believed to be opposition supporters — in presidential elections due in March.
The MDC, which holds slightly more than one-third of the seats in parliament, managed to defeat the proposed changes in a 36-22 vote on Tuesday, as few of the lawmakers from the ruling party showed up.
”Fortunately, the House is supreme and we in Zanu-PF … will be coming in full force to correct the injustice,” said the party’s deputy information secretary, Jonathan Moyo.
State radio news reported that Zanu-PF chief whip, Joram Gumbo was calling all of his party’s members of parliament, including ministers and governors, to attend Wednesday’s parliamentary session ”without fail.”
On Tuesday the Leader of the House, Patrick Chinamasa, who is also the country’s justice minister, described the MDC’s parliamentary victory as ”treacherous.”
”From now on, I will run the house as a sole effort,” Chinamasa said.
In other news, Britain said it will push for Zimbabwe to be suspended from the Commonwealth if political violence in the southern African country worsens, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw told parliament on Tuesday.
The actions of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe to crack down on opposition were a ”serious and persistent violation” of the Commonwealth’s principles, he added.
Violence has been increasing in Zimbabwe as it heads for elections in March, with the MDC seen with a good chance of ending Mugabe’s two decades of continuous rule.
In the Zimbabwean capital Harare, Moyo said he had not yet seen the statement from Straw, but ”if it is true, it just proves again that Britain is interested in our political processes as a rival.”
”They are going a step farther from funding the opposition,” he said, repeating a long-standing claim that Britain, which is Zimbabwe’s former colonial ruler, finances the MDC.
”The British have never treated Zimbabwe as a sovereign country,” he added.
Straw told parliament that ”if the situation in Zimbabwe continues to deteriorate, Britain will argue for Zimbabwe’s suspension from the Commonwealth at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting (CHOGM).”
He also said Zimbabwe’s policies would be examined at a meeting of the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG) due to take place on January 30.
The main Commonwealth summit is due to take place north of Brisbane in Australia between March 2 and 5.
Mugabe has scheduled elections in Zimbabwe in the same month, and tension is expected to go on building up as the campaign hots up.
Straw’s statement is much stronger than one he made last month after a meeting of the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group in London.
Then Britain urged its Commonwealth partners to act over attacks by Mugabe on his political foes and white farmers ahead of watershed presidential elections due in March.
But Straw acknowledged that options that could be taken against Zimbabwe at the next CMAG conference were limited.
Meanwhile there were continuing reports of violence from the country.
Police in Harare said ten people were arrested in weekend political clashes in a northern Zimbabwe town.
Police representative Tarwireyi Tirivavi said that those arrested in Bindura, 70 kilometres north of Harare were from both the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF) and the MDC.
He said they had been charged with public violence and released on bail.
Mugabe is under mounting fire from many quarters for his government’s perceived failure to curb political violence, perpetrated mainly by his supporters.
Western governments accuse the Harare government of failing to abide by a pledge it made to restore the rule of law at a September 6 meeting in Abuja, Nigeria, in exchange for British financial help for a land reform programme.
The occupation of white-owned farms by Mugabe supporters has continued, as have violence against farmers and measures against the political opposition and the media.
Zimbabwe’s government has also refused to allow monitors from the European Union and the United States to observe the presidential poll and the campaign that will precede it.
Mugabe’s Zanu-PF is expected to face its toughest ever challenge for the presidency from Morgan Tsvangirai of the MDC. – AFP, Sapa
08