Zimbabwe: Arrests, Strife, Tension

by Alex Thurston :: Filed Under Africa / Asia / Europe :: June 3rd, 2008 @ 5:25 pm EST

Things are still looking grim in Zimbabwe as the country prepares for a runoff election on June 27 between Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai. Tsvangirai himself is still to my knowledge free, but Mugabe is cracking down on opposition activists:

Police in Zimbabwe have arrested a senior opposition leader after he criticised the president in a newspaper article.

A splinter group of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said its leader, Arthur Mutambara, was jailed on Sunday after questioning Robert Mugabe’s right to stay in office.

Harrison Nkomo, Mutambara’s lawyer, said he was “arrested for publishing falsehoods and for contempt of court for an opinion article he wrote in April”.

The article accused Mugabe of destroying the Zimbabwean economy and his security forces of abuses.

The editor of The Standard newspaper was arrested last month over the piece written by Mutambara.

Mutambara recently pledged to support Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the main MDC group, in the run-off poll against Mugabe.

Police also arrested a lawyer for Tsvangirai and the opposition says at least 50 of its activists have been killed, hundreds injured and at least 25,000 displaced in attacks in the run up to the country’s presidential run-off on June 27.

Mugabe’s army chief has also threatened soldiers with dismissal if they don’t vote Mugabe, and troops are fanning out across the country in anticipation of the next round of elections. To say the least, that doesn’t bode well. Those soldiers may get caught between a rock and a hard place come crisis time, and clearly Mugabe’s people aren’t entirely confident in their loyalty.

Finally, Mugabe is turning some hostility on the outside world as well, targeting the international aid group Care in what may be an attempt to deny food and aid to the opposition.

All in all it seems that foul play is in the works. The main question is how everyone, from the opposition to the regime to the international community and the people of Zimbabwe themselves, will react to a tense and potentially explosive situation.