Zimbabwe, | Monday
A van carrying election observers was stoned on Sunday by Mugabe loyalists who reportedly thought the passengers were opposition party supporters.
Among the injured was a South African and a retired police chief from Botswana who was in a van carrying Southern African Development Community observers.
SA Parliamentary observer Andries Botha told journalists earlier that six observer vehicles were stoned.
Sunday’s incident marked the second time international observers had been attacked by ruling party supporters.
Meanwhile, the leader of a South African branch of Zimbabwe’s ruling party on Sunday slammed journalists for “demonising” Mugabe ahead of presidential elections next month.
“The imperialist media deliberately distorted justice as lawlessness and created a generally bad image about Zimbabwe and Zanu-PF (Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front) by blaming the war veterans as invaders and land grabbers,” Bigvai Gumede, chairman of the branch in Gauteng said.
Gumede said Mugabe was not responsible for mayhem in Zimbabwe.
Mugabe has come under mounting pressure over rights abuses ahead of the March 9-10 presidential election. Rights groups say at least 25 people have been killed in political violence so far this year.
Mugabe’s ruling party militants, some of them war veterans, have been accused of waging a campaign of violence on white-owned farms in a bid to speed up land reforms aimed at redressing colonial-era inequities.
Gumede said violence flared up in Zimbabwe after the British government failed to honour its promises to fund the transfer of unused land from “absentee British landlords” to the masses.
“Then the landless masses … decided it was time justice prevailed.”
Blaming Zimbabwe’s economic woes on “imperialists”, he said they were committing economic sabotage against the country.
Gumede said Zanu-PF would ensure their members go home to vote.
Ruling party supporters here chanted pro-Mugabe slogans and sang freedom songs to mark the launch of the Gauteng branch.
Some supporters of the Pan African Congress (PAC), a party which currently has only three of the 400 seats in South Africa’s parliament and has traditionally backed Zanu-PF, were present.
Mugabe is struggling to extend his 22-year rule against a formidable challenge from opposition leader and former union activist, Morgan Tsvangirai. – AFP