New signs of Mugabe crackdown in Zimbabwe
Michael Wines, New York Times
April 03, 2008

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/04/world/africa/04zimbabwe.html?scp=11&sq=&st=nyt

Zimbabwe's government staged separate police raids on Thursday against the main opposition party, foreign journalists and at least one democracy advocate, raising the specter of a broad crackdown aimed at keeping the country's imperiled leaders in power.

With the government facing election results that threaten its 28-year reign, security officers raided the Miekles Hotel in central Harare on Thursday afternoon, searching rooms that the main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, had rented for election operations, said Tendai Biti, the party's general secretary.

About the same time, a second group of riot officers sealed off the York Lodge, a small hotel in suburban Harare that is frequented by foreign journalists. A lodge worker who refused to be identified for safety reasons said six people were detained, including Barry Bearak, a correspondent for The New York Times who was later located in a Harare jail. The identities of the others were not clear.

Leaders of the Movement for Democratic Change said the raids heralded a campaign of political repression to safeguard President Robert Mugabe, one of Africa's longest-serving leaders. His party, known as ZANU-PF, has already lost control of the lower house of Parliament, according to official results from Saturday's elections, a huge turnabout in a nation where Mr. Mugabe has long controlled virtually all levers of power.

But the government has still not released a tally of the presidential race, prompting international criticism of the delay and concern that attempts were under way to manipulate the count. The government has said the count has been slow because the election was the first one for all national offices at once.

The opposition says that tallies posted at each polling place show that its candidate, Morgan Tsvangirai, won 50.3 percent of the vote, barely enough to gain the majority needed to avert a runoff election against Mr. Mugabe.

But the outcome is far less certain. One independent projection of polling data estimated that Mr. Tsvangirai was well in the lead, but that a runoff would still be necessary. Before the election, Mr. Mugabe repeatedly said that he would not allow the opposition to take power, and since then his aides have said that Mr. Mugabe "is going to fight to the last."

"He's not giving up; he's not going anywhere," Bright Matonga, the government's deputy information minister, told the British Broadcasting Corporation. "He hasn't lost the election."

Zimbabwe has been tense, and police officers have been deployed in force since before the elections. But except for the raids and detentions, it was generally quiet in Harare, the capital, and Bulawayo, the country's second largest city, according to observers there. Still, Mr. Tsvangirai canceled a news conference on Thursday.

A witness described an intimidating display of force outside the York Lodge, the hotel where Mr. Bearak and others were detained. Around 5 p.m., two pickup trucks with 10 to 15 armed riot police officers stationed themselves outside the hotel.

Soon after, reinforcements came, blocking off the hotel and searching it room by room, confiscating laptop computers, notebooks and cellphones. The raid was overseen by high-ranking police officials, said another witness who refused to be named.

"I can confirm that we have arrested two reporters at York Lodge for practicing without accreditation," a police spokesman, Wayne Bvudzijena, told The New Zealand Times.

Bill Keller, the executive editor of The New York Times, said that Mr. Bearak "was apparently one of a number of Americans and other foreign nationals rounded up today. An American consular official who visited him at the central police station reported that he was being held for 'violation of the journalism laws.' We are making every effort to assure that he is well treated, and to secure his prompt release."

Separately, police officers also detained an American worker for a Washington-based pro-democracy group, the National Democratic Institute. The institute said in a written statement that the American, Dileepan Sivapathasundaram, was detained at the Harare airport as he was about to leave the country. His whereabouts were unclear.

Mr. Biti, the general secretary of the Movement for Democratic Change, described the raids as an attempt by Mr. Mugabe to overturn an election that the opposition says it won. "What he's essentially doing is a coup d'état," Mr. Biti said. "He's lost the election, so he's carrying out a coup."

Mr. Mugabe, who has led Zimbabwe for all but a few months of its history, is widely judged a hero of the nation's struggle against white rule. He has become deeply unpopular, though, as the economy has imploded and dissent has been stifled.

In recent years, all but a handful of weekly newspapers have come under government control, and virtually all meetings require government approval. The annual inflation rate exceeds 100,000 percent. Mr. Mugabe blames a Western plot to overthrow him and re-establish colonial rule for the nation's ills.

Zimbabwe prohibits foreign journalists from reporting there without government approval, which is rarely granted. In recent years, Western journalists lacking accreditation have routinely entered the nation openly, although quietly, to chronicle political and economic problems there.

"It is imperative that all journalists, foreign and domestic, be allowed to freely cover the important political situation unfolding in Zimbabwe," said Joel Simon of the Committee to Protect Journalists, adding that the authorities there should "stop intimidating all journalists."

On Thursday Mr. Tsvangirai had intended to mollify security chiefs who had previously sworn not to follow anyone but Mr. Mugabe, The Associated Press reported Thursday. But a meeting with seven generals was called off because the officers said they would be under surveillance, according to the report.

A deal that Mr. Tsvangirai proposed to the generals promised generous retirement packages, as well as pledges not to take back some of the farms that had been doled out to officers under Mr. Mugabe's land seizures of years past, The A.P. said.

The report appeared to correspond with earlier accounts from political analysts that the opposition was in discussions with government officials about the possibility of a transfer of power.

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