Zimbabwe’s ruling party is planning a major cleansing exercise to remove elements who are tarnishing its image with bad behaviour, President Robert Mugabe told leading party members on Friday, according to state radio.
”These cases of [members] wanting to enrich themselves are increasing in number. You are not being fair — some people are just being crookish,” he was quoted as telling 400 members of his Zanu-PF central committee.
”Zanu-PF is going to embark on a major cleansing exercise to remove those elements bent on tarnishing the image of the party by their wayward behaviour with their private and public lives,” he said.
The 82-year-old head of state, in power since independence in 1980, has made similar threats during his 26-year rule but has granted amnesties in return for pledges of personal loyalty in the past.
Much of the nation is suffering an electricity blackout, lacking foreign currency to import power from neighbours or keep local generation plants in full working order.
Zimbabwe’s economy has been in free fall since February 2000, when Mugabe lost a referendum on a new Constitution. Blaming 5 000 white farmers for orchestrating opposition, he ordered seizure of properties covering 17% of the country.
Food production, exports and the value of the currency have crashed, with inflation now over 1 000% and up to four million Zimbabweans reliant on international food relief.
He accused senior party members of seizing multiple farms under his ”fast track reform” to dispossess whites, but said they had looted infrastructure without attending to production. A string of recent court cases have seen new black claimants disputing land and assets left by whites.
Mugabe congratulated United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan for refusing to act as an intermediary in the Zimbabwean crisis, alleging his proposed role had been a ploy by the British government to internationalise it.
”We applaud the secretary general for refusing to be a tool of sinister maneuvers, sinister desires against Zimbabwe,” said Mugabe.
Mugabe claims the economic collapse is due to sanctions and boycotts imposed by Britain, the United States, the European Union and international financial institutions, in revenge for his farm seizures.
Referring to protests this week by campaigners for urgent constitutional reform, 200 of whom were arrested in three major urban centres, Mugabe alleged there were ”foreign sponsored lobby groups” aiming to disturb peace and security.
”Let them take heed of our pre-defined warning that any sinister design to challenge the authority of the government through any illegal way will meet the full wrath of the law,” he said.
Draconian new security legislation gives police power to ban any public gathering, while anyone seeking to ”coerce the government” faces up to 20 years in prison.
Five privately owned newspapers have been suppressed since 2002 and Western observers say Mugabe’s victories in presidential and parliamentary elections since June 2000 have been contrived by extensive rigging and intimidation.
The Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Commission has warned Zimbabweans there will be extensive power cuts this weekend. Most homes and offices receive power for only a few hours each day, causing extensive disruption to work schedules. Sugar, bread and gasoline are already in short supply among many staples. – Sapa-AP