[Full Text] The thin veneer of democracy coating President Robert Mugabe's regime cracked this week when Zimbabwe's military and security leaders appointed themselves protectors of the country's revolution.
Despite their sugary words about preserving Zimbabwean ideals, the generals' message was clear: Mr Mugabe's rule would be upheld, by force if necessary.
With less than two months remaining before Zimbabwe's long-awaited presidential elections, the desperation of Mr Mugabe and his ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) is beginning to show.
The presidential candidate Morgan Tsvangirai, a former union activist who is head of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), represents the first real threat to Mr Mugabe's power since his rise to the presidency with Zimbabwe's independence in 1980.
On Thursday the country's parliament illegally pushed through a set of draconian censorship and election laws that the country's independent press and opposition say are intended to stifle debate and prevent opposition supporters from voting in the election on March 9 and 10.
And in recent weeks, newly formed ZANU-PF youth brigades have begun to impose the kind of terror in urban areas that the country's so-called "war veterans" have used to cow rural Zimbabweans over the past two years.
Intimidation of voters seems to be the name of the game. And if that fails, the military's announcement on Wednesday reminds that there is always the brute force of a coup d'etat.
"I think we could probably have the election results tomorrow for all the value the voting will have," said Richard Cornwell, a political analyst at the South African-based Institute for Security Studies. "What we're seeing is a well-organised campaign of political thuggery."
Once lauded for its fertile farms and peaceful ways, Zimbabwe has been racked by political violence since the run-up to the June 2000 elections, which gave a third of parliamentary seats to the MDC.
In the year-and-a-half since, the Government has cracked down on media and opposition groups, worked to purge the courts of those who would not toe the party line, and seized much of the white-owned farmland for redistribution.
Although few thought the situation could get worse, in the past week, Mr Mugabe and his party have shown increased determination to strengthen their tenuous hold on power.
Human rights groups and the MDC claim the two bills passed by parliament on Thursday - an elections bill and a public security bill - were illegal attempts to bend the law in favour of ZANU-PF.
The new elections law, for example, bans international election monitors. Even more disturbing to opposition groups, however, are the provisions of the security bill, which observers say is even more restrictive than the old colonial rules it replaced. The new law authorises the death penalty for "insurgency, banditry, sabotage and terrorism" and jail and fines for anyone who "undermines the authority of the president" or "engenders hostility" towards him.
"It changes the way that we will campaign," said a MDC spokesman, Learnmore Jongwe. "The law will be used to deny us the right to hold rallies and connect with our people. We cannot attack government policies without risking arrest.
"But we have no intention of turning down. We believe we have to fight this election under these difficult conditions."
A third law still before parliament would forbid non-Zimbabweans from working as journalists in the country and require local journalists to acquire yearly accreditation from the Government.
Mounting international outcry has done little to sway Mr Mugabe from his repressive course. The United States has already imposed limited sanctions against the country's leaders and the European Union, which met late last week with Zimbabwean representatives, is on the verge of taking action of its own.
The Government, however, twists every criticism by a foreign power into evidence of the growing white, colonialist conspiracy against Zimbabwe.
Most recently, an announcement this week by the British Government that moves would be made to oust Zimbabwe from the Commonwealth if the political violence continued was met with scorn.
Even Zimbabwe's neighbours, who have long been loath to criticise Mr Mugabe, have begun to express concern. Desmond Tutu, the Nobel peace laureate and South African anti-apartheid hero, said Zimbabwe was on "the slippery slope towards a dictatorship with the trimmings of a multi-party democracy". [End]
In Nairobi, Tax Tiff Takes Racial Turn Kenya: Mayor of capital tells whites to pay fees or poor may take over their land. But residents say the city is corrupt and have put the funds in escrow. -- By DAVAN MAHARAJ, TIMES STAFF WRITER
[Excerpt] NAIROBI, Kenya -- The Zimbabwe-style seizures of white-owned farms and homes haven't begun here--at least not yet.
But Nairobi Mayor Dick Waweru recently warned white residents of the city's richest neighborhoods that their homes could be invaded by slum dwellers unless they pay outstanding land taxes.
"It's either do or die," he told a news conference. Using the Swahili word for whites, he added, "We must get our money by all means [or] wazungus will have to pack up and go." So far, there has been no denouncement of Waweru's remarks by the government of Kenyan President Daniel Arap Moi, but the mayor's attack has rattled the nerves of white residents, who say Waweru is trying to stir up a race war so he can fatten city coffers.
Waweru's remarks last Saturday marked the latest volley in a running battle involving taxation and government accountability in this capital city.
Angered by the poor condition of roads, the lack of garbage collection and the absence of basic municipal services, residents of the Karen neighborhood--named after Baroness Karen Blixen, the Danish author of "Out of Africa"--began withholding their property taxes a few years ago to force politicians to account for the tens of millions of dollars that pass through City Hall each year. [End Excerpt]