Journalists Held in Raids As Mugabe Clings to Power

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe’s government raided the offices of the main opposition movement and rounded up foreign journalists last night in an ominous indication that he may use intimidation and violence to keep his grip on power.

Police raided a hotel used by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change and ransacked some of the rooms.

Riot police also surrounded another hotel housing foreign journalists, and took away several of them, according to a man who answered the phone there.

The New York Times reported that one of their reporters was among those seized.

“Barry Bearak, a Times correspondent based in Johannesburg, was taken into custody today by police in Harare, Zimbabwe, where he was covering the elections.

We do not know where he is being held, or what, if any, charges have been made against him,” Bill Keller, the newspaper’s executive editor, said.

“Mugabe has started a crackdown,”

Movement for Democratic Change secretary-general Tendai Biti told The Associated Press. “It is quite clear he has unleashed a war.”

Mr Biti said the raid at the Meikles Hotel targeted “certain people … including myself”.

Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai was “safe” but cancelled plans for a news conference, he said.

Zimbabwe’s Electoral Commission started issuing election results of the country’s upper house of parliament election.

So far opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC and President Robert Mugabe’s ruling ZANU-PF each won five seats in the 60-seat contest.

Mr Biti said last night’s clampdown was a sign of worse to follow, but that the opposition would not go into hiding.

“You can’t hide away from fascism.

Zimbabwe is a small country. So we are not going into hiding. We are just going to have to be extra cautious,” he said.

Independent observers said their own projection based on results posted at a representative sample of polling stations showed that Mr Tsvangirai won the most votes in Saturday’s election, but not enough to avoid a run-off.

Mr Mugabe’s deputy Information Minister Bright Matonga said Mr Mugabe was ready for a run-off, dashing hopes that he would bow quietly off the national stage he has dominated for 28 years.

“President Mugabe is going to fight. He is not going anywhere. He has not lost,”

Mr Matonga told the BBC. “We are going to go hard and fight and get the majority required.”

Earlier yesterday, Mr Mugabe was shown on state television meeting African Union election observers, his first public appearance since the elections.

A commission member indicated that presidential results would be announced tomorrow, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the media. But that was before the commission said that today’s expected announcement of senate results was delayed because of “logistical problems”.

The commission said it still was receiving ballot boxes from the provinces, raising questions about where those votes had been since Saturday’s elections amid charges of a plot to rig the results. Western election observers have accused Mr Mugabe of stealing previous elections.

Mr Mugabe has ruled since his guerrilla army helped force an end to white minority rule in then-Rhodesia and bring about an independent Zimbabwe in 1980.

He ordered the often-violent seizures of white-owned commercial farms, ostensibly to return them to the landless black majority. Instead, he replaced a white elite with a black one, giving the farms to relatives, friends and cronies who allowed cultivated fields to lie fallow.

Today, a third of the population depends on imported food handouts.

Another third has fled the country and 80 per cent is jobless. Inflation is the highest in the world at more than 100,000 per cent and people suffer crippling shortages of food, water, electricity, fuel and medicine.

“Mugabe has started a crackdown. It is quite clear he has unleashed a war Tendai Biti

(c) 2008 Birmingham Post; Birmingham (UK). Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.