This seemed to be the message as the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front launched its campaign for the presidential elections run-off which it said President Robert Mugabe had to win.
The campaign, marred by violence, was being spearheaded by the military and war veterans who reportedly told the people that they should vote for ZANU-PF because the whites were coming back to take their farms and war veterans were going back to war.
The Movement for Democratic Change as well as the Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights and the Counselling Services Unit both of which received funding from the United States government documented the cases of violence.
ZADHR said the most common injury treated was extensive soft tissue injury of the buttocks resulting from prolonged beatings with a hard blunt object.
Full cable:
Viewing cable 08HARARE331, SITUATION REPORT: POST-ELECTION VIOLENCE CONTINUES
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Reference ID |
Created |
Released |
Classification |
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VZCZCXRO9588
OO RUEHDU RUEHMR RUEHRN
DE RUEHSB #0331/01 1071143
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
O 161143Z APR 08
FM AMEMBASSY HARARE
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 2783
INFO RUCNSAD/SOUTHERN AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT COMMUNITY
RUEHUJA/AMEMBASSY ABUJA 1924
RUEHAR/AMEMBASSY ACCRA 1926
RUEHDS/AMEMBASSY ADDIS ABABA 2049
RUEHRL/AMEMBASSY BERLIN 0612
RUEHBY/AMEMBASSY CANBERRA 1326
RUEHDK/AMEMBASSY DAKAR 1683
RUEHKM/AMEMBASSY KAMPALA 2105
RUEHNR/AMEMBASSY NAIROBI 4536
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHDC
RUEHGV/USMISSION GENEVA 1181
RHEFDIA/DIA WASHDC//DHO-7//
RHEHAAA/NSC WASHDC
RUZEJAA/JAC MOLESWORTH RAF MOLESWORTH UK//DOOC/ECMO/CC/DAO/DOB/DOI//
RUZEHAA/CDR USEUCOM INTEL VAIHINGEN GE//ECJ23-CH/ECJ5M//
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 HARARE 000331
SIPDIS
SIPDIS
NSC FOR SENIOR AFRICA DIRECTOR B. PITTMAN
USAID FOR L.DOBBINS AND E. LOKEN
ADDIS ABABA FOR USAU
ADDIS ABABA FOR ACSS
E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/16/2018
SUBJECT: SITUATION REPORT: POST-ELECTION VIOLENCE CONTINUES
REF: A. HARARE 00327
¶B. HARARE 00317
¶C. HARARE 00314
Classified By: AMBASSADOR JAMES D. MCGEE FOR REASONS 1.4 (B & D)
——-
SUMMARY
——-
¶1. (U) The MDC-Tsvangirai party and human rights groups have
reported a massive surge in political violence orchestrated
by senior regime insiders. Soldiers, police, war veterans,
and youth militia have been deployed to rural areas to thrash
the electorate into submission and to intimidate the
opposition ahead of an anticipated presidential runoff
election. Hit squads have been targeting opposition members
and supporters for abductions, assaults, and destruction of
property while forcing the public to attend rallies where
they hear threats of more violence and a return to war if
they do not support ZANU-PF.
¶2. (U) Since March 29, over 150 victims of post-election
violence have required medical treatment — including 30
victims with serious injuries that required hospitalization.
There has been one confirmed death of an MDC-Tsvangirai party
organizer. More than 40 new cases of violence have been
recorded since April 10.
¶3. (SBU) The pattern of attacks and escalating rhetoric is
similar to campaigns unleashed in 2000 and 2002; however, we
do not believe the violence will escalate to the level of, or
take on characteristics of the post-election tribal violence
witnessed recently in Kenya. The violence in Zimbabwe is
systematic and orchestrated by the ruling party. It is
primarily targeted against regime opponents and is not racial
in nature. Further, it is unlikely that the MDC and other
regime opponents will fight back. We do note that the
situation will likely continue to worsen until ZANU-PF is
confirmed in power, most likely through another election it
will not permit itself to lose. END SUMMARY.
——————–
Violence on the Rise
——————–
¶4. (U) The MDC-Tsvangirai party and human rights groups have
reported a massive surge in political violence targeting
opposition candidates, polling agents, organizers, and
supporters, as well as the general public since the March 29
elections. There have been widespread reports that senior
regime insiders, including senior military and police
officials, are directing an orchestrated campaign of violence
intended to intimidate the electorate to support ZANU-PF in a
runoff election and to punish opposition members and
supporters. In addition to reports from the opposition
parties and civil society groups, we have directly received
in the Embassy numerous anecdotal accounts of ZANU-PF attacks
and threats.
¶5. (U) At an April 14 press conference, the MDC-Tsvangirai
party distributed a “Post Election Violence Report” which
provided details of attacks against hundreds of MDC
supporters since the March 29 elections, including the
following:
— April 6, ZANU-PF youth in Seke attacked MDC local
councilor candidate Shepherd Zhanje and broke his right arm;
— April 7, ZANU-PF supporters in Uzumba burned down the home
of MDC supporter Tendai Muzadai;
— April 8, armed soldiers in Gutu South constituency
threatened a group at gun point that if they voted for MDC
HARARE 00000331 002 OF 004
President Morgan Tsvangirai in the runoff they would be shot;
— April 8, armed soldiers in Kotwa severely assaulted MDC
supporters Paul Mhanza and Filter Chikura who sustained
serious internal injuries and a damaged ear drum,
respectively;
— April 9, ZANU-PF youth abducted an MDC local councilor
candidate in Mutoko North constituency and took him to a
nearby business center where he was heavily assaulted in
front of by-standers;
— April 10, ZANU-PF supporters in Muzarabani South
constituency burned down 10 homes belonging to MDC supporters;
— April 12, ZANU-PF supporters in Mutoko South constituency
assaulted MDC party polling agents Patience Mapuranga and
Mahwisai Chizanga;
— April 12, ZANU-PF supporters in Mudzi West looted the shop
of accused MDC supporter Paradzai Chimutsa;
— April 13, ZANU-PF youth in Mudzi East attacked at least 20
MDC supporters.
¶6. (C) MDC-Tsvangirai Secretary for Welfare Kerry Kay also
told us that Tapiwa Mbwanda, the party organizing secretary
for Hurungwe East district in Mashonaland East province, was
beaten to death by well-known ZANU-PF supporters in the area
(ZANU-PF Youth Chairman Bilo Kaunda, war veteran Jauret
Kazangarare, and Bilo Kaunda’s brother Trust Kaunda).
Mbwanda’s brother was also beaten unconscious during the
attack and remains hospitalized. We have received additional
unconfirmed reports of other deaths as well.
¶7. (U) Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights
(ZADHR) reported on April 15 that its members had treated 157
cases of injury resulting from organized violence and torture
since March 29. Thirty of these victims (15 from the Mudzi
district in Mashonaland East province) remained hospitalized
for serious injuries. The most common injury treated was
extensive soft tissue injury of the buttocks resulting from
prolonged beatings with a hard blunt object. Nine patients
sustained fractures. One victim had multiple abrasions on
his back and multiple fractures of his arms and hands typical
of defensive injuries.
¶8. (C) Dr. Francis Lovemore, director of the Counseling
Services Unit (CSU) and ZADHR board member, told us that
violence was escalating as more than 40 new cases had been
recorded in her hospital unit since April 10. According to
CSU records, the majority of attacks have been in rural areas
of Mashonaland East, Masvingo, and Manicaland provinces —
areas that traditionally have been ZANU-PF strongholds, but
where the opposition won 38 House of Assembly seats compared
with holding only 3 seats prior.
¶9. (C) Dr. Lovemore told us that most victims were threatened
with further retribution if they reported their injuries or
loss of property to authorities. She also expressed concern
about reports that the perpetrators had prevented some
victims from leaving the area to seek medical treatment.
¶10. (C) In addition to physical attacks, many victims have
had their homes and livestock burned and destroyed and with
their families forced to flee. Yeukai Kaseke, the MDC
director for elections in the Mutoko South constituency in
Mashonaland East province, told us that war veterans and
youth militia were holding rallies on a daily basis in the
area. During the rallies, opposition supporters were
identified and beaten in public to demonstrate the
consequences of supporting the MDC. War veterans and ZANU-PF
youth also have been conducting night-time raids on
homesteads suspected of harboring MDC members and supporters.
Many homes have been burned down and livestock killed;
hundreds of people have fled the area fearing further
violence. Kaseke added that anyone who went to police was
told to “solve their own problems” and that a senior police
HARARE 00000331 003 OF 004
officer in the area ordered all his officers not to interfere
when MDC supporters were attacked.
——————————————— —
Reorientation Campaign: Vote for Mugabe or Else
——————————————— —
¶11. (SBU) The MDC-Tsvangirai party and human rights groups
have asserted that senior regime insiders — including high
ranking politicians and military officers — are overseeing
the command and control of the violence. We have received
credible reports, for example, that Health Minister David
Parirenyatwa was directly involved in orchestrating acts of
violence and making death threats around his rural Murewa
constituency in Mashonaland East province. There also have
been rumors that Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa is doing
the same in his rural constituency in Manicaland province
where he suffered an embarrassing loss to the MDC-Tsvangirai
candidate by some 3,000 votes.
¶12. (C) Corroborating reports of involvement of senior
military officers, two Embassy employees on a crop assessment
trip April 7 – 12 in Mashonaland East and West provinces
(including the districts of Kotwa, Mudzi and Hurungwe where
numerous attacks have been reported) spoke with an army
lieutenant colonel and self-identified members of teams
involved in the attacks in the area. (NOTE: The employees
were traveling with several civil servants from the Ministry
of Agriculture and the group assumed they were civil servants
as well. END NOTE.) The lieutenant colonel, who is the area
manager for Operation Maguta, a program spearheaded by the
Zimbabwe Defense Forces to supply and control agricultural
inputs and equipment throughout the country, told EmbOffs
that soldiers, war veterans, and other ZANU-PF supporters
were undergoing military training to carry out a
“reorientation campaign” to ensure Mugabe won the runoff
election and to punish and intimidate opposition supporters.
He said that some 400 vehicles had been deployed throughout
the country to support the operation.
¶13. (C) Members of the teams also told our employees that
they were directed from one area to another in a coordinated
fashion. Coincidently, while our staff members were talking
with the group, several members of the teams assaulted two
youth passing by wearing MDC t-shirts. They also witnessed
members of these teams forcing the public in the Kotwa
district to attend a rally where they were addressed by war
veterans and told to support ZANU-PF because “whites were
coming back” to take their farms and they were “going back to
war.”
¶14. (SBU) Additionally, several local Ministry of Agriculture
and Grain Marketing Board (GMB) civil servants that the
employees met with on the trip reported that the political
situation in the area was tense and that stories of the
attacks were circulating in the communities and creating
fear. The employees also noted that the areas they visited
during the trip were stripped of opposition campaign
materials, but ZANU-PF posters were still plentiful.
According to the lieutenant colonel, the reorientation
program was supposed to continue until the runoff election.
——–
COMMENT
——–
¶15. (SBU) Preceding the March 29 election, Mugabe and ZANU-PF
opened up a degree of democratic space not seen in previous
elections and allowed rallies and other forms of campaigning
in areas that had previously been &no-go8 areas for the
opposition. Having been surprised by the strength of the
opposition which by all accounts won the election, the regime
HARARE 00000331 004 OF 004
is in full survival mode. Part of this is systematic
violence and intimidation against the opposition, primarily,
but not exclusively, in rural areas, to ensure that in a
runoff election ZANU-PF wins by a comfortable margin.
¶16. (C) COMMENT CONTINUED: It bears emphasis that, unlike in
Kenya, this violence is not spontaneous and is not between
rival ethnic groups. It is systematic, orchestrated, and
controlled from the highest levels of the ruling
party/government and is directed primarily against regime
opponents. Further, the opposition has demonstrated in
recent years that it is unwilling and unable to confront the
power of the government. MDC officials, including party
president Morgan Tsvangirai, have confirmed to us that the
MDC will continue to pursue a political and non-violent
strategy. As such, we do not expect the situation to spin
out of control, but to continue steadily until ZANU-PF and
Mugabe have been confirmed in power through another election
that they will not permit themselves to lose. END COMMENT.
MCGEE
(15 VIEWS)
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