Wife of Mugabe rival burned alive after having feet hacked off

BBC News Thursday, 12 June 2008 14:35 UK

 

The wife of a Zimbabwean opposition party member has been brutally murdered in what is being labelled as one the most grotesque atrocities yet committed by Robert Mugabe’s regime.

 

Dadirai Chipiro, wife of Patson Chipiro who heads the Zimbabwean opposition party in Mhondoro district, had a hand cut off as well as both of her feet before a petrol bomb was thrown through her window.

The three men who pulled up outside her house were looking for her husband, who was in Harare, and left before coming back an hour later to kill her.

Her body was so badly burnt that she was not able to be properly placed in a coffin as her arm was burnt rigid.

 

Last Friday's killing was carried out as violence worsens in the run-off presidential elections in two weeks time.

 

It also follows the chilling brutality methods of Sirrra Leone rebel leader Foday Sankoh, whose trade-mark was to chop off hands and feet.

According to The Times, Mrs Chipiro, 45, a former pre-school teacher, was the second wife of a junior official of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) burnt alive by Zanu (PF) militiamen.

 

Pamela Pasvani, the 21-year-old pregnant wife of a local councillor in Harare was killed in a similar attack, which also claimed the life of the councillor six-year-old son.

 

Zimbabwe has been plunged into civil unrest in the run-up to the second round of Zimbabwe's presidential elections

 

Meanwhile local MDC supporters gathered around Mr Chipiro’s in a bid to protect him.

Mr Chipiro, 51, arrived back from Harare to find his three brick huts on fire.

“I was trying to put the fire out,” he said. “I thought my wife was hiding in the bushes.”

The Times said his four-year-old nephew, Admire, heard him calling her. “He ran to me. He said, ‘Auntie has been beaten and they threw her in the fire’.”

 

Officials also initially refused to give Mr Chipiro a copy of the police report which listed the cause of death.

“I am very frightened,” he said. “They want to kill me. But I have no alternative. My presence here as a leader is very important.

"If I leave, everyone else will leave. I intend to fight the battle, from here.”

Thursday, 12 June 2008 20:17 UK

BBC News

Mugabe critic on treason charge

 

The secretary general of Zimbabwe's main opposition party will be charged with treason and faces a possible death sentence, police say.

 

Tendai Biti of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) was arrested in Harare on his return from South Africa.

 

MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai, who faces President Robert Mugabe in a 27 June run-off poll, has also been detained.

 

Meanwhile, the BBC has obtained evidence suggesting the military is involved in the Mugabe poll campaign.

The documents outline plans by the ruling Zanu-PF party to harass and drive out opposition supporters, especially from rural areas.

Thursday also saw the US accuse Zimbabwe's security forces of seizing a lorry loaded with American food aid for schoolchildren, and distribute it to ruling party members.

 

Treason investigation

 

National police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena said Mr Biti would be charged with treason "for publishing a document that was explaining a transitional strategy around March 26".

 

Morgan Tsvangirai faces a run-off with Robert Mugabe on 27 June

He said he would also be charged for proclaiming victory in the 29 March elections before official results were published.

 

"For the treason charge he faces the death penalty or life in prison," he said.

"He is in police custody and we are still investigating the matter."

 

Zimbabwe's deputy Information Minister Bright Matonga told the BBC's Focus on Africa that Mr Biti was due to appear in court soon.

Mr Biti had been aware he faced arrest once he returned from South Africa, where he had been for two months.

Since the first round of the presidential election on 29 March, he has regularly hosted news conferences and acted as a deputy to Mr Tsvangirai.

Mr Tsvangirai was detained twice on Thursday - the first time at a roadblock near the central town of Kwekwe on the way to an election rally.

He was released after two hours only to be picked up later by a different group of police officers. He has now been held four times this month.

 

Political violence

 

The US ambassador to Zimbabwe, James McGee, said Washington was "very, very concerned" about the treason charge against Mr Biti.

 

He said he had seen the document the charge was based on, and described it as a routine policy plan of the kind any political party would write ahead of an election.

 

The lorry of American food aid, US officials said, was seized about 6 June.

"We have information that the humanitarian food was then distributed to government party members at a government party rally," US state department spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos said.

 

Meanwhile, five people have been killed in political violence in the southern Zimbabwean town of Masvingo in less than a week, BBC contributor Owen Chikari reports.

 

At least four of those killed were MDC supporters, party official Wilstaf Stemele said.

Mr Tsvangirai said this week that Zimbabwe was "effectively being run by a military junta".

 

He said more than 60 opposition supporters had been killed in political violence since the March elections and 200 more were unaccounted for.

 

Mr Mugabe's supporters say the scale of the violence has been exaggerated and blame the MDC for some attacks.

But human rights groups accuse the ruling party of being behind most of the violence.

 

Are you disgusted that Robert Mugabe & his henchman are able to get away with destroying this once great African nation or do you think it is none of our business?

 

 

I'm disgusted by Mugabe, but at the same time it's nowt of our business... If we start poking our oars in, well, that's just gonna be read as the old Imperialist powers interfering, and I dont think anyone really wants that, and frankly, I feel that we've interfered quite enough in the affairs of other sovereign nations, and it's led to nothing but disaster for both us and for the people concerned. Mugabe is an African problem for Africans to deal with.... And, well, let's face it, Mugabe isn't the only leader in the world involved in this sort of thing, political assassinations, locking up political opponents and such; Vladimir Putin's name has come up in relation to several assassinations and plots to assassinate political opponents, not to mention the attempted poisoning of the Ukrainian president, and the Thalium radiation murder which happened in London a few years back.....

 

Putin and Mugabe - peas in a pod if you ask me..... And we dont seem to object to doing deals with the Russians these days.... Okay, Putin MAY be out of power now (well, officially anyway....), but let's face it, Medvedev is just Putin's b**ch..... -_-

I'm disgusted by Mugabe, but at the same time it's nowt of our business... If we start poking our oars in, well, that's just gonna be read as the old Imperialist powers interfering, and I dont think anyone really wants that.... And, well, let's face it, Mugabe isn't the only leader in the world involved in this sort of thing, political assassinations, locking up political opponents and such; Vladimir Putin's name has come up in relation to several assassinations and plots to assassinate political opponents, not to mention the attempted poisoning of the Ukrainian president, and the Thalium radiation murder which happened in London a few years back.....

 

Putin and Mugabe - peas in a pod if you ask me..... And we dont seem to object to doing deals with the Russians these days.... Okay, Putin MAY be out of power now (well, officially anyway....), but let's face it, Medvedev is just Putin's b**ch..... -_-

 

can't Putin run for President again after Medvedev's term is 'over'?

I'm disgusted by Mugabe, but at the same time it's nowt of our business... If we start poking our oars in, well, that's just gonna be read as the old Imperialist powers interfering, and I dont think anyone really wants that, and frankly, I feel that we've interfered quite enough in the affairs of other sovereign nations, and it's led to nothing but disaster for both us and for the people concerned. Mugabe is an African problem for Africans to deal with.... And, well, let's face it, Mugabe isn't the only leader in the world involved in this sort of thing, political assassinations, locking up political opponents and such; Vladimir Putin's name has come up in relation to several assassinations and plots to assassinate political opponents, not to mention the attempted poisoning of the Ukrainian president, and the Thalium radiation murder which happened in London a few years back.....

 

Putin and Mugabe - peas in a pod if you ask me..... And we dont seem to object to doing deals with the Russians these days.... Okay, Putin MAY be out of power now (well, officially anyway....), but let's face it, Medvedev is just Putin's b**ch..... -_-

 

hmm... i dunno m8, should we just sit back and let other countries commit attrocities? let them sort it?.. well whatever we must be even handed.

I'm disgusted by Mugabe, but at the same time it's nowt of our business... If we start poking our oars in, well, that's just gonna be read as the old Imperialist powers interfering, and I dont think anyone really wants that, and frankly, I feel that we've interfered quite enough in the affairs of other sovereign nations, and it's led to nothing but disaster for both us and for the people concerned. Mugabe is an African problem for Africans to deal with.... And, well, let's face it, Mugabe isn't the only leader in the world involved in this sort of thing, political assassinations, locking up political opponents and such; Vladimir Putin's name has come up in relation to several assassinations and plots to assassinate political opponents, not to mention the attempted poisoning of the Ukrainian president, and the Thalium radiation murder which happened in London a few years back.....

 

Putin and Mugabe - peas in a pod if you ask me..... And we dont seem to object to doing deals with the Russians these days.... Okay, Putin MAY be out of power now (well, officially anyway....), but let's face it, Medvedev is just Putin's b**ch..... -_-

 

Well seeing how Mugabe and his evil henchman are being kept afloat by Russia & China (two fine upstanding countries who know all about democracy, civil rights and freedom :rolleyes:) vetoing action at the UN council, then f*** all will happen, other than hundreds more innocent civilians dying, tens of thousands more displaced, and its nation heads even further to its self inflicted by Mugabe grave.

 

 

well whatever we must be even handed.

 

Whis is pretty much exactly what the West has NOT been.... Seems to me that, hey, if you got oil, we'll invade you, mess up your country, slaughter tens of thousands of civilians in two nights of cluster-bombing, and install a friendly puppet regime, but if you're someplace like Burma, well we're not interested really, you've got nothing to offer us.... So, we'll sell you lots of nice weapons instead..... Or, if you're the Saudis, we'll kiss your arse and stop fraud investigations.... Or, if you're China, we'll be your mates and criticise anyone who has the nerve to point out all the nasty sh!t you're getting up to in Tibet and the rural areas of China.... Or if you're Russia, we'll look the other way while you assassinate or incarcerate political opponents, slaughter and oppress tens of thousands of Chechens or send a hit-squad to the streets of LONDON to kill one of your own nationals with radiation, potentially putting god knows how many LONDONERS at risk in the process..... <_< And we say the Muslims are terrorists.....? :rolleyes:

 

"Ethical" foreign policy....? I don't really think we have any moral high-grounds where this issue is concerned considering the sh!t we are turning a blind eye to in the name of political expediency....

can't Putin run for President again after Medvedev's term is 'over'?

Yes. The limit os only on two consecutive terms.

Mugabe: if I lose the poll, we will wage war

 

A defiant President Robert Mugabe yesterday vowed he would 'go to war' if he lost the presidential run-off due to take place in less than two weeks.

 

Describing the opposition as 'traitors', he claimed Zimbabwe would never 'be lost' again. Speaking at the burial of a veteran of the independence war, Mugabe said he would never accept the Movement for Democratic Change taking over. 'It shall never happen ... as long as I am alive and those who fought for the country are alive,' he said. 'We are prepared to fight for our country and to go to war for it.'

 

The threat was seen as an angry response to the pressure mounting on the government from other African leaders over the regime's harassment of the MDC leadership and supporters in the run up to the 27 June election.

 

Source: The observer

 

While Mugabe is vile I don't want to see any British troops sent to Zimbabwe, we have already had a lot of needless British blood spilled in Iraq and Afghanistan, Zimbabwe while unpleasant is not really our problem

While Mugabe is vile I don't want to see any British troops sent to Zimbabwe, we have already had a lot of needless British blood spilled in Iraq and Afghanistan, Zimbabwe while unpleasant is not really our problem

The other thing is that although the situation there is becoming desperate, I can't see anything happening apart from UN sanctions (although unlikely to work, one because it only effects the poor and two because the Russians and Chinese are still providing weapons and most probably food)

 

Zimbabwe also is not likely to contain terrorists likely to interfere with Britain... so that's a no-no to going in with America.

The other thing is that although the situation there is becoming desperate, I can't see anything happening apart from UN sanctions (although unlikely to work, one because it only effects the poor and two because the Russians and Chinese are still providing weapons and most probably food)

 

Zimbabwe also is not likely to contain terrorists likely to interfere with Britain... so that's a no-no to going in with America.

 

Zimbabwe gets the most publicity and Mugabe is the media bogeyman but what is happening in Zimbabwe is happening in many parts of Africa without the same level of publicity as Zimbabwe gets so if Mugabe was dealt with so would other vile dictators need to be too, many countries don't even have any sort of elections at all even though of course this one is fixed for Mugabe to win and I fully expect him to win even though he will probably get about 1/3 of the vote