09 MAY 2007
MDC CALLS FOR AFRICAN LEADERS TO ACT ON ZIMBABWE
On the 12th of April 2007 Movement For Democratic Change (MDC) President Morgan Tsvangirai outlined the systematic unbridled assault that have been unleashed against the MDC, civic society and activities by Zanu PF regime.
In that statement President Tsvangirai disclosed at the time that 600 party members had been tortured, abducted between 11 March 2007 and then.
Over 150 members throughout the country had been hospitalized or victimized at the hands of Robert Mugabe regime and his militia. Since then the situation has not mitigated, on Monday 30 April 2007 our Manicaland provincial information officer Pishai Muchauraya was abducted from Mutare and spend a horrendous week at Harare Remand being tortured and butchered by state thugs. The very next day our youth leader Godfrey Kauzani was taken at his home bundled into a truck and taken to Beatrice Police station where he was tortured and brutalized and to be released on 3 May 2007. The very next day the two main lawyers representing MDC activists since the brutal clampdown began two months ago, Alex Muchadehama and Andrew Makoni were taken by the police and unlawful detained at the horrendous Matapi Police Station.
Despite three court orders Robert Mugabe regime contemptuously refused to release the human rights lawyers, eventually Harare magistrate court remanded them but on 7 May 2007 comical allegations of obstructing of justice were proffered against them. The drama did not end there, only yesterday, 8 May 2007 about 100 senior lawyers of Harare gathered at the Harare High Court in a bid to march to the office of the dictator’s minister of Justice legal and Parliamentary affairs Patrick Chinamasa to hand over a petition protesting the arrest and detention of their professional colleagues Alex Muchadehama and Andrew Makoni.
The feudal aura emanating from their gowns did not prevent the police heavily armed from assaulting and roughing the lawyers gathering at the High Court. Some of the lawyers who were assaulted by the regime’s police include Chris Seddon of Colglan and Guest, Innocent Chagonda of Atherton and Cook, MDC Secretary General Tendai Biti.
Immediately then after police bundled four senior lawyers namely President of the Zimbabwe Law Society Beatrice Mtetwa, Chris Mhike, Fritz Patrick and Colin Kuhuni into a truck were they took them into a open field along Samora Macheal Avenue close to East 24, and heavily brutalized and tortured them. Later the lawyers had to be admitted to Dandaro Hospital for treatment.
This is the amazing brutality of this regime, whose actions shame even the desperate expressions of the settler regime of Ian Smith.
As if this not enough the regime with its complicit judiciary continues to deny bail to MDC members languishing at the Harare remand prison including heroic Ian Makone MP Paul Madzore, Luke Tamborenyoka, Morgan Komichi,Piniel Denga,Kudakwashe Matibiri,Brighton Matimba,Solomon MadzoreTonderai and Barnabas Ndira, Ishmael Kauzani amongst others.
The conditions of these political prisoners continue to deteriorate in the infected lice prisons. Many of the detainees include Morgan Komichi, who is in critical condition and is fighting for his life. We lost our chairman Isaac Matongo last week on 2 May 2007 because of cumulative suffering at the hands of the dictatorship. That death was caused by unbearable stress induced by the murderous Mugabe regime, we do not want to loose Morgan Komichi, or any of our heroes that are detained at Harare Remand Prison. Since 1 March 2007 it is quite clear that the regime has lost it and can do everything legal or illegal to eliminate the MDC and its allies.
The assault on MDC, Non Governmental Organizations ,the church, and our party structures is not an accident. These are barbaric acts of a gangster state whose days are numbered.
We saw this barbarism act in 1978-79 in the last days of that artificial construction called Zimbabwe- Rhodesia. These acts of thuggery are the birth pains of a new Zimbabwe. It is imperative that African leaders, in particular the African Union and SADC, take note, not deaf ears to the current crisis in our country.
We ask African leaders to call for an extra-ordinary summit on Zimbabwe which is long overdue to condemn these atrocities put pressure on the regime to stop the onslaught on democratic forces.
We ask the facilitator of the SADC dialogue, President Thabo Mbeki to realize that no dialogue can take place in an environment full of fascism and violence perpetrated by the state. I
t is our view that turning a blind eye on this state-sponsored violence and atrocities is tantamount to fertilizing impunity.
We in the MDC will continue to fight for a decisive resolution of the Zimbabwe crisis, predicated upon a new constitution and removal of all obstacles to create an environment for free and fair elections.
The eventual realization of the people’s will be achieved through the democratic struggle that we are going through.
YESTERDAY,TODAY, TOGETHER WILL MARCH TO A NEW ZIMBABWE.
MDC Secretary- General Hon Tendai Biti
