The Telegraph
By Sebastien Berger in Johannesburg
9th March 2008
President Robert Mugabe’s regime has stepped up its campaign of violence in the wake of Zimbabwe’s elections, evicting more than 60 commercial farmers from their properties.
The brutal response to the polls, in which Mr Mugabe is widely held to have come second to Morgan Tsvangirai of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change in the presidential race, is a direct echo of what happened last time he lost a vote.
Two weeks after Mr Mugabe lost a referendum on constitutional reforms in 2000, the first white-owned farm was invaded, and four weeks later the first white farmer was killed.
This time – even while the presidential election result has still not been announced – the reaction has come more quickly.
“We’ve got over 60 farmers who have been evicted,” said Trevor Gifford, president of the Commercial Farmers Union. “Every couple of minutes my phone is ringing with another case of eviction. Some are being given a couple of minutes or a day to vacate, but they have to leave what is there behind.”
Two of those forced from their land were black, he added. “They are targeting anyone seen as against the ruling party, it’s really sad,” he said. “We should be living in harmony, we need unity. There is enough land for everyone.”
At the same time several farmers are fighting court actions against eviction orders from the properties they have cultivated for years. With Mr Mugabe claiming the MDC are Western stooges bent on reversing his land reforms, the political motivation behind the invasions by so-called “war veterans” is clear.
Opposition supporters are also being beaten up, according to both the MDC and the campaign team of Simba Makoni, once a stalwart of the ruling Zanu-PF party who stood against his former mentor.
An army source said that at least two military camps, Magunje near Karoi about 125 miles north of Harare, and another in Rusape, about 120 miles south east of the capital, had begun fitness training for a new intake of Mr Mugabe’s youth militia.
The violence appears to be geared towards putting Mr Mugabe in a position where he can win a second-round run-off for the presidency.
Tendai Biti, the MDC secretary-general, said the war veterans’ activity was concentrated in areas that were once Mr Mugabe’s strongholds, where many voters had switched allegiance to the opposition.
“There’s been a complete militarisation and a complete re-arming of mobs who led the terror in 2000 and 2006,” said Mr Biti. “I say to our brothers and sisters across the continent: Don’t wait for dead bodies in the streets of Harare.”
He said that the government was seeking to provoke protests that it could use as a pretext to declare a state of emergency, which would Mr Mugabe to delay, or possibly even annul, the polls.
He said that he feared for the safety of five Electoral Commission officials arrested on Monday after the ruling Zanu-PF party claimed that the count was fixed against it.
A court has began hearing an MDC application for an order releasing the presidential results.
David Coltart, an MDC senator, said: “There is an eerie silence reminiscent of what followed the referendum in 2000 which Mugabe lost. He used that period of seeming inactivity to lay the groundwork for the farm invasions which followed and I fear that is precisely what is going on now.”
Zimbabwe’s information minister, Sikhanyiso Ndlovu, said the opposition claims were untrue and there was “no violence whatsoever”.