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FROM THE FIELD

Zimbabwe: Who is watching?
20 Jun 2008 08:39:00 GMT
 Source: Trócaire - Ireland
Trocaire

Website: Website: http://www.trocaire.org

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Graffiti in Harare displays Zimbabweans' frustrations since March 29
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Graffiti in Harare displays Zimbabweans' frustrations since March 29
Conor O'Loughlin

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Frightening reports are coming from Zimbabwe as the country's run-off election draws near.The headlines alone are enough to send a chill down your spine; 'Mobs target opposition families', 'Do or die campaign', 'Zimbabwe is under siege', 'War of terror', 'They looted my body like I was dead', 'Militia reach town', 'No hope in Zimbabwe'. This while a special UN envoy is visiting Zimbabwe to assess pre-election conditions and while hundreds of Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) observers and observers from other African countries are being deployed across the country.

Their presence is not enough to deter those responsible for tilting the electoral playing field and meting out brutal violence ahead of the June 27run off. Scores of people have been killed and the numbers feared displaced now number in the tens of thousands.

Few Electoral Observers

The Government has only accredited 500 local observers this time around and very late in the day as well. By contrast, thousands were accredited for the March polls where, by their very presence, they deterred violence and boosted the morale of a despondent and fearful electorate. They were present inside each of the country's 9,000 polling stations - an impossible feat for foreign observers who only number in the hundreds.

The presence of a greater numbers of foreign observers this time round (500 compared to 120 in March) is welcome but the fact remains that they are visitors and will only see things with the limited vision of a visitor's eyes. Will they see, and accurately document, the fact that thousands will stay away from the polls due to displacement or because of the ongoing intimidation and violence or because their identity cards have been burned along with their homes and all their belongings?

Will they follow the TV and document the total absence of opposition campaign messages, the new and official policy of the Zimbabwean State Television?

Will they feel the hunger for justice that was so palpable in the first round of elections? Will they hear the stomachs of more than 4 million people that continue to ache and that are being denied food and essential medicines? Since June 4th most NGO's have been banned from operating and those who haven't are too afraid to do so.

One only needs to look at the way that people are being beaten and killed to understand the levels of fear that have been sweeping across Zimbabwe. Only yesterday (Wednesday June 18) the body of Abigail Chiroto, wife of a leading MDC councillor for Harare City Council, Emmanuel Chiroto was found on a farm on the outskirts of Harare. Armed militia abducted her from her home on Monday evening along with her four-year-old son after setting the house alight with petrol bombs. The little boy was dropped off at a local police station but his mother was brutally slain and her body dumped in a wood. Mr. Chiroto was elected a city councillor on March 29th but since the elections Local Government Minister Ignatius Chombo has blocked the councillors from formally taking office and from entering Harare's City Hall. On Sunday night, in a symbolic gesture of defiance, MDC councillors nominally appointed Mr Chiroto the new Mayor of Harare.

We all have a responsibility to act as observers in this election period and to bear witness to what is happening. The time has come to declare enough is enough and for those with power, locally, nationally and internationally, to take firm action to stop this flagrant and brutal display of man's inhumanity to man.


[ Any views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not of Reuters. ]

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[ Any views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not of Reuters. ]

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Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe leaves the podium during a U.N. crisis summit on rising food prices at the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in Rome June 3, 2008. World leaders opened ...


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