Mugabe wants a fight

After last week's optimism, it looks like the old scumbag is going to cling to power however he can:

Armed police prevented opposition lawyers from entering Zimbabwe's High Court on Saturday to lodge an urgent suit aiming to force the publication of presidential election results.

Opposition lawyer Alec Muchadehama said a senior police officer wearing a ruling Zanu-PF shirt gave the orders, amid increasing signs of a clampdown.

"No one is going to enter. They say they are going to call the riot police," Muchadehama said. Journalists waiting outside the court were also ordered to disperse.

The Movement for Democratic Change wanted the High Court to force the electoral commission to publish results of the March 29 presidential election.

[...]

Nelson Chamisa, spokesman for the opposition, pointed to signs of a coming clampdown, including a march in Harare by war veterans loyal to Mugabe who have beat up opponents in the past; a raid on opposition party offices, and the detention of foreign journalists by armed police in full riot gear.

"They are trying to intimidate people, they are trying to set up the context for unleashing violence. The vampire instincts of this regime are definitely going to come out," Chamisa charged.

Zimbabwe needs the assistance of the international community, he said.

"The U.N. has to make sure that there is no violence in this country. ... They should not (wait to) come when there is blood in the street, blood in the villages."

[...]

The law requires a runoff within 21 days of the first elections. But diplomats in Harare and at the United Nations said Mugabe was planning to declare a 90-day delay to give security forces time to clamp down.

I'd like to say I'm disappointed in Mugabe, but this has been SOP for quite some time. I am disappointed, once again, by his fellow African leaders, who seem perfectly cool with the Zimbabwe tragedy continuing:

An African Union election observer team found no evidence of fraud during voting last weekend, according to the delegation's leader, former Sierra Leone president Ahmed Tejan Kabbah.

Kabbah praised Mugabe as "a patriot," and said during a meeting Thursday that the Zimbabwe leader was "relaxed" despite his setback at the polls.

Maybe if Mugabe starts eating his opponents, other African governments will stop thinking of him as an anti-colonial hero. Maybe.

Damian P.

Posted by damian at April 5, 2008 09:51 AM