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Bombing may be start of anti-Mugabe backlash
The Independent (UK)
March 26, 2007

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/africa/article2393304.ece

A violent backlash against the government of Robert Mugabe may have begun over the weekend after reports that a passenger train leaving Zimbabwe's capital, Harare, was petrol-bombed.

The main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) has denied any involvement in the attack late on Friday night, which police claim left five people injured in a stampede as passengers fled the blast.

The incident was the third alleged petrol bombing in the fortnight since police killed two MDC activists and seriously injured scores more at a peaceful prayer meeting in the capital.

Leaders of both factions of the divided MDC have called for a non-violent campaign of civil disobedience in response to the state-sponsored crackdown.

A coalition of opposition groups has announced a campaign of defiance including the boycotting of taxes and a general strike. So far there have been no mass protests against the recent killings and beatings. But hyperinflation, near-total unemployment, and police violence have exhausted patience in some of the townships outside the big cities, where youths have been lighting bonfires and blocking roads.

Arthur Mutambara, leader of one of the MDC factions, said it was possible that state-sponsored agent provocateurs were behind the petrol bombings. "Robert Mugabe would want to portray us as violent. To justify the way they have brutalised and arrested our members, they want to say that we petrol-bombed this police station or that train."

Mr Mutambara, however, put the blame for the upsurge in violence firmly at the door of the Mugabe regime. "We are living in a state of lawlessness and chaos sponsored by the state, how can we be expected to control the way that people respond? People are sick and tired of being sick and tired."

President Mugabe, now in his 27th year in office, has responded angrily to international criticism of police violence. "Police have the right to bash them," Mr Mugabe told state television, before telling Western leaders to "go hang". He said protests by opponents and civic and church groups would be met "very vigorously" by security forces.

"We hope they have learnt a lesson. If they have not, then they will get similar treatment," he said.

Police have banned all political meetings for three months, imposed ad hoc curfews and launched "hit squads" into the townships targeting activists. Human rights groups have documented the arrest and beating of at least 110 opposition activists in the past 10 days, including one woman who suffered a miscarriage after being beaten on the back with truncheons.

The Solidarity Peace Trust, a Zimbabwean civil rights monitor, said the state's culture of impunity was generating a culture of violence: "When police officers who torture and murder are not brought to justice, and are told they have a right to do this, it is tragically predictable that people's patience will run out and as anger and desperation rise, vigilante-style violence will rise."

Riots broke out on the night of 11 March in Highfields, one of Harare's poorer townships, where youths vandalised a bus, beat up passengers and firebombed a nearby police station, injuring three policewomen as they slept. In Bulawayo there was an alleged unsuccessful attempt to derail a train. And police claim officers were injured in an attack on a station in Mutare.

With the memorial service due tomorrow for Gift Tandare, one of the activists killed by police, the stage is set for further clashes.

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