Tsvangirai accused of ‘hijacking’ abduction case

The Citizen

11th March 2015

Zimbabwe’s ruling party has accused Movement for Democratic Change leader Morgan Tsvangirai of “hijacking” the abduction of a pro-democracy activist in a bid to drum up support for the opposition, it was reported on Wednesday.

Journalist and activist Itai Dzamara, 36, was still missing following his abduction from a barber shop in a Harare township on Monday.

Rights group Amnesty International described his abduction as “deeply alarming”.

Zanu-PF spokesman Simon Khaya Moyo told the Herald newspaper: “I do not even know the person in question [Dzamara] but [Tsvangirai] is trying to find a case to please his masters because they have nothing to offer the people.”

Tsvangirai on Tuesday said he held President Robert Mugabe and his party responsible for Dzamara’s abduction.

The activist had been holding protests in central Harare calling for Mugabe to resign since late last year and has allegedly previously been beaten and abducted by police and suspected state agents.
However, Moyo insisted Zanu-PF was “not lawless”.

“If they reported to police we are law-abiding and if there is anybody who commits a crime, police know what to do,” Moyo told the Herald.

The MDC and government critics say the police are biased against the opposition.

Opposition politician and lawyer David Coltart said on Wednesday Dzamara’s disappearance was “another in a long line of people over the last three decades”.
Coltart wrote on Facebook: “I demand that those responsible release him immediately. This appalling conduct must end if Zimbabwe is to progress.”

Relatives of Dzamara, whose Twitter account says he is the founder of Trinity Media in Zimbabwe, travelled to Goromonzi on the outskirts of Harare on Tuesday to investigate claims of a body there, but found nothing, lawyer Charles Kwaramba told Sapa.