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Mugabe sets ground for reign of terror, retains cabinet, embarks on witch-hunt
Zimbabwe Youth Forum
April 10, 2008

Robert Mugabe, the losing Zanu (PF) presidential candidate for March 29 harmonised elections has decided to impose himself on the people of Zimbabwe. He has done this by creating ground for unleashing a reign of terror with special emphasis in the rural areas. This decision has been passed at an 8 hour adhoc meeting held at state house from 9am-2pm yesterday (Wednesday 9 April 2008). It has been agreed that war veterans are going to be deployed to lead all rural police stations with immediate effect; furthermore they have been promised handsome packages which are to be disclosed next week. It has also been resolved that police and soldiers should be on high alert to crush any possible uprising. This meeting according to a member of the Central Intelligence Officer who preferred anonymity for the fear of victimisation, who attended the meeting said the cabinet which was dissolved before elections was retained. Skanyiso Ndlovu, the outgoing minister of information and publicity, was instructed to issue a statement to the effect that the cabinet is still functional till the run off is over. The date for the runoff was however not disclosed, there was only emphasis on strategising how to win the runoff election and the need to deal with civil servants who were supporting the opposition.

With such a scenario, the rural areas are obviously going to once again become opposition party no go areas and the electorate in those constituencies is going to be in for a high jump as there is going to be a witch-hunt for those who 'dinned with the enemy' in the recent harmonised elections. This is going to intimidate the electorate ahead of this stage managed runoff election whose date is yet to be announced. Despite the physical and psychological torture associated with this premeditated move to intimidate the electorate the voters are obviously going to be disenfranchised as they flee for their dear lives from war tone zones as designed by Robert Mugabe.This also creates an uphill task for organisations like Youth Forum whose target group is mainly in the rural areas since such areas will be inaccessible to non-ZANU PF players.

This is worrisome to any concerned Zimbabwean citizen, human rights defenders and activists at large. Youth Forum regards this as a defacto state of emergency which is very unhealthy for the development of any nation; however Youth Forum is going to continue doing its work despite this bumpy environment. This situation has further been aggravated by the inciting headlines by the state media which promote violence by the defence forces and war veterans as well as some senior government officials. For example allegations that the opposition is planning to fire all service chiefs and senior government officials as well as redistributing land to the white commercial farmers. Some war veterans have already started occupying farms for the white commercial farmers, Masvingo is one area where they have done it and the state has kept quiet about it. On the other hand, the high court is keeping on postponing the ruling on the urgent high court application by the opposition MDC demanding the quick release of presidential election results and this shows how partisan they are.

In a separate incident a Masvingo magistrate, Timor Makunde has further remanded the Youth Forum Board Chairperson for the 6th time to June 10 and no reasons have been given to justify this move. Youth Forum takes this as a deliberate move to frustrate a vibrant youth activist and stop him from fighting for the democratization of this country. He is accused of labeling the police as Mugabe's dogs after they arrested him for addressing a public meeting hosted by Youth Forum late last year. Despite this persistent harassment of activists, Youth Forum encourages Zimbabweans to remain steadfast in the face of such an evil regime. The road is obviously going to be very thorn but Youth Forum encourages all Zimbabweans particularly the youths to fight till we reach our final destiny, a democratic and people driven nation.

Youth Forum Information And Publicity
+263 23 353 291, +263 913 022 368
www.youthforum.org.zw

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