Fear and Loathing in Harare

national | miscellaneous | news report Thursday March 14, 2002 20:19 by Revolutionary African - ISO Zimbabwe isozim at hotmail dot com Thursday March 14, 2002 at 11:32

Initial Statement From ISO Zimbabwe

Initial Statement by the International Socialist Organisation issued Thursday 14 March 2002

The results of the elections have not totally surprised us…and it has nothing to do with vote rigging.

The turnouts in Matabeleland and Harare reflect the disillusionment that ordinary workers have over the MDC. Its neo-liberal policies and consistent refusal to back workers actions since June 2000 have led to this situation. The MDC’s vacillations over the land issue have also messed up the MDC.

The voter turnoust in the Mashonaland provinces is a reflection of how important the land issue became. By seizing on this issue is how ZANU (PF) shored up its sagging support.

Even at this moment the anger over the MDC’s slowness at organizing mass action is being sensed. The longer the MDC takes to do something, the more it is likely to become even more isolated.

It is the MDC’s policies that have led to its electoral defeat. But with the economic crisis in the country and the levels of poverty that neither ZANU (PF) nor MDC will (or can) solve can only lead to further mass explosions over the coming weeks and months.

http://zimbabwe.indymedia.org/

From Zim ADMIN
administrator of the Zimbabwean IMC

How it feels to be an activist in Harare at the moment.

‘They’ve already stolen the elections. They’ve won.’ I was talking to a leading independent journalist earlier today. His despondency echoes throughout the left in Zimbabwe.

It seems as if the government have engineered the election result they wanted. The rest is just paperwork. They’ve managed to prevent people in urban pro-MDC areas from voting. They’ve managed to coerce people in rural areas, through lies, threats of violence, kidnapping of MDC election observers, killing of activists, and propaganda, to get the rural population to vote for them.

They’ve plucked out the key strategists from the MDC. Today Welshman Ncube, allegedly fleeing the country, arrested at the Botswana border. Tomorrow Tendai Biti, David Coltart and perhaps one or two other whites. Or so it feels.

This government is smarter than the opposition have given it credit for. No one here has slept in days. We’re tired. So tired. The vote has been for nothing. A farce that will be endorsed in a couple of days by the official election observers. Many observers don’t think this has been a free and fair election. Their opinion is sure to be overruled by their political masters, those who want stability, not justice.

Who’s speaking out? The police and army, loyal as ever, are swarming over Harare and Chitungwiza. Any rebellion here will be crushed in short order. Let us look, then, to Matabeleland. Where voter turnout was unaccountably low. Where 30,000 were killed in the civil war in the mid-1980s.

Hope is, right now, in short supply.