Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has warned that veterans of Zimbabwe's 1970s liberation war are prepared to take up arms again rather than see the opposition win a June 27 election, state media said yesterday.
“They came to my office after the [first round of] elections and asked me: ‘Can we take up arms?’” Mugabe was quoted by the Herald newspaper as telling a rally in Murehwa, to the northeast of Harare on Thursday. “They said this country was won by the barrel of the gun and should we let it go at the stroke of a pen? Should one just write an X and then the country goes just like that?”
Mugabe told supporters of his ZANU-PF party that he had told the delegation of war veterans that approached him that he did not want the country to go back to war.
However, he repeatedly raised the specter of renewed conflict, reiterating accusations that Morgan Tsvangirai, his rival at the run-off poll in two weeks’ time, was a puppet of wealthy whites and former colonial power Britain.
“It will never happen that this land, which we fought for, should be taken by the MDC [Movement for Democratic Change party] so that they can give it back to our former oppressors, the whites,” he said. “Would you want to vote to go back to war, to fight for the country which we liberated?”
Mugabe said that voters had made a “mistake” by giving Tsvangirai a majority in the first round, albeit less than the 50 percent needed to avoid a run-off.
The MDC also wrested control of parliament from ZANU-PF on March 29 in a simultaneous legislative election.
Meanwhile, the No. 2 figure in Zimbabwe’s opposition was yesterday facing a treason charge after his arrest within minutes of arriving back home to campaign in the June 27 presidential run-off election.
Police also detained MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai twice on Thursday in central Zimbabwe, holding him for some two hours the first time, and about four hours the next, before releasing him.
Tendai Biti, secretary-general of the MDC, could face the death penalty if convicted of treason. The charge he faces centers on claims he plotted to rig an MDC victory in first-round elections three months ago.
Biti — an outspoken critic of Mugabe, whom he accuses of trying to hang on to power at all costs — was arrested on Thursday even before he reached passport control at Harare airport.
At the UN in New York, meanwhile, UN humanitarian chief John Holmes warned that the upcoming harvest in Zimbabwe would likely feed only a quarter of the country’s people.
“I was briefing the council on what is a very worrying, very serious and deteriorating humanitarian situation in Zimbabwe,” Holmes told reporters.
“Against that background ... the decision [earlier this month] by the government to suspend field operations by international NGOs and private volunteer organizations working in Zimbabwe was particularly regrettable,” Holmes said. “I deplore that decision and I hope very much they’ll rescind it in the very near future.”
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in