Maravi

Tsvangirai vows to stage more protests

Tsvangirai vows to stage more protests
By George Chellah and Kingsley Kaswende in Harare,
Thursday January 24, 2008 [15:00]

OPPOSITION MDC president Morgan Tsvangirai has vowed to stage more protests throughout Zimbabwe. And President Robert Mugabe’s spokesperson George Charamba has urged the MDC to respect Zimbabwe’s sovereignty and the spirit of the SADC-initiated dialogue.

However, Tsvangirai addressed a rally on Wednesday afternoon just hours after the magistrate court upheld a police ban on their march around the city centre but allowed them to proceed with the rally at the scheduled venue.

The MDC appealed to the court against the police’s decision to cancel the demonstration and the court upheld the ban but only permitted them to proceed with the rally without marching through Harare Central Business District.

They went ahead and held a rally just a distance away from the ZANU-PF headquarters where President Mugabe was also having a meeting with the ruling party’s Politburo.

Tsvangirai told the crowd that he would apply to the police to hold a similar march again.

“On the march, we have followed the law. You think you can take the right of the people using tear gas? We will repeat this again because the law allows us,” Tsvangirai said. “The law allows us to demonstrate and tomorrow I want to go back to apply (again). We will succeed at the end of the day and the good shall prevail over evil.”

He said the police’s conduct confirmed that President Mugabe was not committed to holding free and fair elections this year.

“What has happened today is the act of the politicians not the police because the police must respect the right of the people. The character of ZANU-PF is that it responds to the peaceful expression of the people through violence, greed and corruption and defiance of both national and international opinion,” Tsvangirai said.

“This march is a test of sincerity on the part of Mugabe, Thabo Mbeki and SADC that, they should find a solution to the crisis that Zimbabwe is facing. The solution is not to brutalise people, the solution is to engage people.”

Tsvangirai said President Mugabe has failed the test to hold a free and fair election.

“If this is the reaction of this dictatorship, then elections are a fallacy because I don’t see a situation where this police can salute a change of government. I don’t forsee a situation where the electoral Commission can actually announce the defeat of Mugabe,” Tsvangirai said. “We have stated clearly that the talk of going for elections just for the sake of it…we need to have the conditions that are free and fair. We will not go and legitimise an illegitimate government.”

Meanwhile, riot police armed with tear gas canisters dispersed some defiant MDC supporters who attempted to march on the streets. The police also mounted roadblocks on the major highways from the townships leading into the Central Business District and searched all suspicious looking vehicles and their occupants.

And Charamba said the government dismissed with utter contempt claims by the MDC that police on Wednesday arrested Tsvangirai.

“That is a blatant lie. The BBC’s interests in repeating and expanding on the falsehood that the MDC leader had been arrested had been spectacularly disproportionate. There is a whole world of difference between a police arrest and an invitation by the law and order authorities for a discussion, something remarkably standard in most jurisdictions and in the case of Zimbabwe something provided for under the recent amendments to the Public Order and Security Act," Charamba said.

“Significantly, the amendments to POSA were co-sponsored in Parliament by both factions of the MDC and were a direct outcome of the SADC initiated dialogue being mediated by South African President Thabo Mbeki. Government notes that Tendai Biti himself, Tsvangirai’s representative to this same dialogue, has chosen to lie about a
straightforward, lawful step envisaged under a law, which he co-authored and co sponsored in the dialogue and in Parliament. Was the law meant to be selectively applied?"

He urged MDC to respect Zimbabwe’s sovereignty and the spirit of the SADC talks.

"The MDC must not relapse into an unashamed tool of the British Labour government’s desperate bid for an extension of the illegal EU and American sanctions against sovereign Zimbabwe. As indicated to the MDC in that brief meeting (with the police) the proposed march was unlawful and therefore unauthorized,” Charamba said.

“Government expects Tsvangirai and his party to keep their pledge to a peaceful campaign and lawful conduct, which they made to law enforcement authorities. The more so against the background of reckless statements he and had his colleagues have made in recent meetings threatening a repeat of the recent civil unrest in Kenya here in Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe will have peaceful polls.”

And Chief police spokesperson Assistant Commissioner Wayne Bvudzijena said Tsvangirai was on Wednesday morning invited for questioning to clarify statements made by MDC officials threatening to engage in riots worse than those in Kenya.

Labels: MDC, MORGAN TSVANGIRAI, SADC, ZANU-PF

posted by MrK @ 7:50 PM