Babies seized by Robert Mugabe;
Scores of children and babies have been locked up in filthy prison cells in Harare as Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s president, sinks to new depths in his campaign to force the opposition into exile before an expected run-off in presidential elections.
Twenty-four babies and 40 children under the age of six were among the 250 people rounded up in a raid on Friday, according to Nelson Chamisa, spokesman for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Yesterday they were crammed into cells in Southerton police station in central Harare.
“This is ruthlessness of the worst kind. How can you incarcerate children whose mothers have fled their homes hoping to give their children refuge?” asked an emotional Chamisa yesterday. “In Mugabe’s Zimbabwe even children are not spared the terror that befalls their parents.”
The families were rounded up from MDC headquarters, where they had sought refuge from violence in the countryside.
Thought to be directed by top military officers, Operation Where Did You Put Your Cross? has prompted thousands to flee. They are trying to escape the so-called war veterans, who are attacking people and burning down hundreds of houses for voting “incorrectly” in last month’s elections.
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At the same time the opposition leadership has been driven into hiding or abroad. Tsvangirai fled Zimbabwe two weeks ago after he was charged with treason for “conspiring with the British to oust Mugabe”.
“I am unable to return home for fear of my life,” he wrote in The Washington Post last week.
There is also a very strong tribal association underlying what is going on in Zimbabwe. Present-day Zimbabwe was taken over in the early 1800’s by the Ndebele (Matabele), an off-shoot of the Zulu nation. The Ndebele defeated the Shona (the indigenous people), and afterwards treated them as conquered people. Their property and lives were subject to the Ndebele king, and the Ndebele did not treat the Shona well. They were little more than slaves. The Ndebele were wealthy stockmen with vast herds of cattle. They also farmed the rich lands that were later farmed by the white settlers. Their warriors were virtually unbeatable.
It was the Ndebele, under their king, Lobengula, who negotiated the Rudd Concession with Rhodes in 1888. This territorial treaty allowed the British mining and colonisation rights throughout Ndebeleland.
Mugabe is Shona.
The tribal hatred between the Ndebele and the Shona were put on hold during the fight for independence. Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo were tentative allies, but after Mugabe won the 1980 elections, distrust of Nkomo, on the part of Mugabe, resulted in him unleashing his thugs, the North Korean-trained “Fifth Brigade” on the Matabeleland, killing 20,000 Ndebele. This was all done to rid himself of ZAPU, the party led my Nkomo, and create a one-party state. Much of the hatred Mugabe had for Nkomo was predicated on old tribal rivalries.
Nkomo’s ZAPU party was supported by the Ndebele and the whites, while Mugabe’s ZANU-PF had its support from the majority Shona. The parties were split along tribal lines. Much of the white-owned land was in Matabeleland, and when Mugabe began to strip the whites of their property, he gave it to members of his inner circle, Shona.
Morgan Tsvangirai, a Shona, and leader of the MDC, was outspoken regarding Mugabe’s treatment of Nkomo and the Ndebele. Tsvangirai has been beaten and imprisoned, but has continued his fight against Mugabe’s totalitarian regime.