Posted on 06/11/2003 5:12:25 AM PDT by Clive
THE government this week intensified a crackdown to break the back of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party, but analysts yesterday told The Daily News that increased State repression could instead nudge crisis-weary Zimbabwe towards more violent confrontation.
Police earlier this week arrested MDC secretary-general Welshman Ncube, stepping up a countrywide swoop to decapitate the opposition party that has also seen its leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, and about 800 activists of the party arrested in the last 10 days.
Tsvangirai and Ncube were slapped with fresh treason charges for allegedly calling for President Robert Mugabe's unconstitutional removal from office.
The two opposition leaders are already standing trial for treason for allegedly plotting to assassinate Mugabe ahead of last year's presidential ballot. The two, who face the death penalty if convicted, deny the charges.
Human rights lawyer and political commentator Brian Kagoro said the ruthless clampdown on the MDC, which followed mass protests organised by the party that shut down Zimbabwe last week, was meant to warn not only the opposition party, but the entire nation on the dire consequences of opposing the government.
He said: "All dictatorships want to create an impression among people that all struggle is futile, risky and reprehensible. The arrests are not a message to the MDC leadership, but to its supporters and the general populace that if government can clamp down on their leaders, it could do more to them."
But Kagoro was quick to point out that the iron fist flaunted by Mugabe and his government could never quell public discontent against his rule fuelled by the economic crisis.
"When political discontent is a result of social and economic malaise, you cannot deal with it by arresting political leaders because by so doing, you create a vacuum for new leaders to emerge who will radicalise the strategy," said Kagoro, who is also co-ordinator of Crisis in Zimbabwe, a coalition of non-governmental organisations, human rights and civic groups working to end the country's deepening crisis.
The MDC, the most potent threat yet to Mugabe and his administration in 23 years, last week brought Zimbabwe to a standstill in mass protests the party said were aimed at forcing Mugabe to resign or to concede he had failed to run the country and agree to negotiations with the opposition party on a solution to a burgeoning economic, social and political crisis gripping the nation.
Most Zimbabweans stayed away from work and business and industry shut down across the country in response to the MDC's call for mass protests, but anti-Mugabe street marches the opposition had planned faltered in the face of a massive show of military force by the government.
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