(NEWZIMBABWE) MDC contradicts PM on 'peace'

MDC contradicts PM on 'peace'
by Lebo Nkatazo
23/06/2009 00:00:00

PRIME Minister Morgan Tsvangirai message of “peace and stability” in Zimbabwe is being contradicted by his own party which has called an extraordinary national executive meeting for Tuesday. The MDC says it will deliberate on a “crackdown” against its officials, civic society activists, journalists and lawyers by the police.

On top of discussing the death of Gweru-Chirumanzu Senator Patrick Kombayi last Saturday, the MDC will seek a position on “the continued crack-down on MDC members characterised by the unwarranted detention of the party’s Director General, Tondepi Shonhe, who is languishing in prison on an innocuous trumped-up charge”.

The party also says its Mutare West MP Shuah Mudiwa was convicted on “trumped up charges” of kidnapping a 13-year-old girl in Mutare last Saturday and awaits sentencing on June 27.

Two other MPs, also from Manicaland, were recently convicted on violence charges. Mathias Mlambo (Chipinge East) and Lynette Kori (Chimanimani West) have appealed against both conviction and sentencing.

Tsvangirai, on the final leg of his world tour to drum up support for the four-month-old power sharing government, was heckled off the podium of a London cathedral last Saturday after telling exiles to return home, insisting there is “peace and stability” in Zimbabwe.

Tsvangirai repelled questions over the arrest of human rights activists and his own supporters, insisting: “We have worked very hard to ensure that there is no abuse that takes place.”

In an interview aired on Monday, he told BBC Radio 4 that activists with pending court cases were going through “due process”, adding: “They have not committed those crimes. I believe so myself.”

The Prime Minister’s supporters say he has deferred to Mugabe in his effort to make the unity government work. But Tsvangirai insists the human rights situation has improved substantially, and accuses detractors of a “paranoid obsession of what was happening before, and I will not be the one to force them to accept what I am explaining.”