Police said on Tuesday they had found a cache of ammunition on a farm south of Harare which could be part of a ”plot” to disrupt the World Cup cricket matches being held in Zimbabwe.
Also on Tuesday, police said one man was believed to have died of severe burns and seven more were injured in a firebombing on Monday night of the ruling Zanu-PF offices in a poor Harare township where the ruling party and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) are fighting for control ahead of a parliamentary by-election.
Chief police representative Wayne Bvudzijena said on state radio the incident in Kuwadzana township ”could be linked to the (World Cup) cricket games” in Harare and the western city of Bulawayo which start on February 10.
He claimed that violence broke out when MDC supporters began ”provoking” people. The incident was ”believed to be part of the MDC’s violent campaign” before the by-election.
However, MDC representative Paul Themba Nyathi said: ”It’s more likely to be a Zanu-PF job to tarnish the image of the MDC.”
The ruling party is in the midst of carrying out a major offensive in the crowded constituency in its bid to break the MDC’s hold on the country’s urban areas. Hundreds of ruling party youth militia have been deployed into Kuwadzana in what residents say is a campaign of violent intimidation of voters.
Ruling party businessmen have been selling maize-meal, the national staple which is in critically short supply, but only to ruling party supporters in what human rights groups say is a determined bid to bribe voters.
The firebombing was the first major attack on the ruling party since the run up to parliamentary elections in 2000 when gangs of ruling party and MDC youths battled for supremacy in the country’s urban areas.
Earlier, the state-controlled daily Herald quoted policeman Assistant Inspector Paul Nyati as saying that nearly 2 000 rounds of ammunition and 25 bayonets had been found on a chicken farm in the Beatrice area south of Harare. He was quoted as saying that the discovery was ”suspected to be a plot to cache arms which would be used to cause anarchy in the country” ahead of next month’s World Cup matches.
Nyati said police wanted to interview a farmer, named only as Connolly, who had been staying at the farm after he lost his own farm north of Harare to President Robert Mugabe’s land reform programme, under which about 3 500 white farmers have been forced off their land.
However, said the Herald, Connolly was believed to have left the country. Asked to confirm the report, Bvudzijena said any link to a conspiracy to disrupt the World Cup matches ”could be just speculation.”
The six World Cup matches being played in Harare and Bulawayo from February 10 have assumed major political importance, with the International Cricket conference as well as the English and Australian teams going ahead with their matches in defiance of the British and Australian governments’ pleadings to boycott their games.
The two government’s insist that playing in Zimbabwe, where Mugabe is patron of the Zimbabwe Cricket Union, will give legitimacy to his government after he ”stole” presidential elections through fraud and violence last year.
The International Cricket Conference (ICC) says it is monitoring the security situation in the two cities and may call off the Zimbabwe matches if they become anxious about security.
The opposition MDC has warned the ICC of possible unrest during the tournament as economic collapse accelerates and the country’s worst ever famine threatens seven million people.
Pro-democracy groups have also warned they plan to hold mass demonstrations around the time of the tournament. – Sapa-DPA