Zimbabwe’s justice minister accused opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai on Thursday of wanting to stage a coup against President Robert Mugabe’s government through his call for anti-government marches.
Patrick Chinamasa told state television that Tsvangirai’s call for Zimbabweans to rise up ”in their millions” and stage ”democracy marches” and stayaways next week constituted ”high treason”.
”The clear intention behind such threatened actions is to effect a coup d’etat against the legitimately elected government of Zimbabwe,” Chinamasa was quoted as saying by the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC).
Earlier, the army warned that it would forcefully quell any violence associated with the stayaways.
Tsvangirai does not recognise Mugabe as the country’s legitimate leader, following a disputed victory Mugabe had over Tsvangirai in elections last year. His party wants a re-run of the poll.
Already, Tsvangirai and two other senior officials are on trial for treason following an alleged plot to assassinate Mugabe ahead of the 2002 election. They deny the charges, and claim they were set up.
Chinamasa said it would be futile for Tsvangirai to try and achieve what he had not achieved through the alleged plot by calling for anti-government demonstrations.
”Mr Tsvangirai cannot seek to achieve, through a coup d’etat or banditry, what he failed to achieve through the alleged attempted assassination of the head of state,” he charged.
The justice minister’s comments came on the same day as Zimbabwe’s army warned it would crack down forcefully on any act of violence during the planned mass action.
The Zimbabwe Defence Forces (ZDF) ”will not be an idle observer” to democracy marches and street demonstrations called by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), it said in a statement quoted by the state-run Herald newspaper.
”Instead it will bring to bear its full force upon those perpetrators of uncalled-for violence,” it added.
The MDC has dubbed the mass action, scheduled to last for a week from June 2, the ”final push” for freedom. The party blames Mugabe’s government of mismanaging the economy and increasing hardships for all Zimbabweans.
Bank notes and blood for transfusions have joined the list of shortages, that include basic foodstuffs. Inflation is running at 269% and rising.
Although the opposition party has called for a peaceful demonstration next week, a job stayaway called by the MDC in March saw the petrol-bombing of buses and offices belonging to Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party.
”It is a fact that previous stayaways turned violent with both innocent lives of citizens and property being deliberately destroyed,” the army said.
The MDC has been running advertisements in the private media urging the armed forces not to compromise their professional neutrality by acting as a ”private force” for Mugabe’s party.
”National security forces are not and should never play the role of political arbiters or judges in the people’s struggle against dictatorship,” said one opposition advert.
Tensions are rising ahead of the planned demonstrations. Three women were arrested on Wednesday in central Harare as they took part in MDC-organised prayer sessions.
MDC activists were distributing leaflets on Thursday, declaring that Zimbabweans were ”living miserable lives at the hands of a regime that has lost all love and fear of God”. – Sapa-AFP