Zimbabwe's voters told: choose Mugabe or you face a bullet
Mugabe is continuing his campaign of violence to intimidate the Zimbabwean people in re-electing him and avoiding a repeat of the election three months ago when he lost to Tsvangirai.
People are also being warned that the Zanu-PF will not accept defeat and that another victory for Tsvangirai will result in war.
I am astonished that someone like Mugabe even bothers with elections at all; that the old tyrant can carry out such a process and then pretend that the result is legitimate. And, infinitely worse, that neighbouring states like South Africa - led by Mbeki - can lend any credence at all to what is currently taking place in Zimbabwe.Already the Mitsubishi pick-up trucks filled with young men carrying sticks, spears and knives were out on the streets preparing to move door-to-door, beating, and sometimes killing, anyone associated with the opposition.
"They hunt the opposition. They said they ate human liver and drank urine during the war and so they were prepared for war again," said the young woman.
The militiamen found Farai Gamba, a ward organiser for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), at the weekend and shot him dead. The Rusape chairman of a group of Zimbabwean independent election monitors disappeared on Saturday night and his whereabouts are not known. Many others have been tortured at the local militia base.
The de facto curfew is in place because the ruling Zanu-PF does not want witnesses to the terror that engulfs Zimbabwe at night, and increasingly during the day, as the party seeks to avoid a repeat of three months ago, when Tsvangirai defeated Mugabe, albeit without an outright majority to secure an outright win.
A campaign that began with the tested tactic of beatings has evolved into a full-blown military strategy of abductions and murders of opposition MDC activists and supporters. More than 100 have been killed and 200 have disappeared. Thousands more have been beaten so badly they will bear the scars for life. A number of rapes have also been reported, including of three women who had wooden poles thrust into their vaginas. But it is not clear at this stage if the attacks are a deliberate part of the terror strategy.
Often the corpses are hidden, but occasionally the killers like to display their handiwork as a warning. Chokuse Muphango was murdered in Buhera South last week. His killers put his body on the back of a truck and drove it through town announcing: "We have killed the dog."
Mugabe is now actually threatening war from public platforms:
Mugabe has said time and again he regards the upcoming vote not as an election but as a continuation of the liberation struggle against western imperialism and its "puppet", Tsvangirai. "This country shall not again come under the rule and control of the white man, direct or indirect. We are masters of our destiny. Equally, anyone who seeks to undermine our land reform programme, itself the bedrock of our politics from time immemorial, seeks and gets war. On these two interrelated matters we are very clear. We are prepared to go to war," Mugabe told an election rally at the weekend.Mugabe has gotten away for years with portraying what he is doing as some epic struggle against western imperialism, but the most recent election showed that the people of Zimbabwe have stopped believing him.
And so we are left with this, he now threatens war if the people don't re-elect him.
And still Mbeki says nothing, still he hopes that "quiet diplomacy" will persuade Mugabe to do the right thing.
Inflation in Zimbabwe now runs at 1.6 million%. Teachers earn Z$40bn a month. A litre of cooking oil costs Z$20bn.
The entire country is on the edge of collapse, causing thousands to flee, which is itself leading to a refugee problem for Mbeki and has led to horrific violence on the streets of South Africa.
The time for "quiet diplomacy" has gone. Africa needs to loudly condemn Mugabe.
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