Zimbabwe court refuses to delay parliamentary vote

June 8, 2000
Web posted at: 2:55 p.m. EDT (1855 GMT)

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HARARE, Zimbabwe -- Zimbabwe's High Court rejected on Thursday an effort -- by those opposed to President Robert Mugabe -- to delay parliamentary elections scheduled for later this month.

Isaac Manyemba, secretary general for the Zimbabwe Union of Democrats, said his party was considering an appeal, but that it had made a "moral point" that the upcoming elections would not be fair to opponents of Mugabe and his ZANU-PF party.

Mugabe's party has ruled Zimbabwe since its 1980 independence from Great Britain, and Mugabe has been the former Rhodesia's sole president. But a deepening economic crisis has eroded ZANU-PF's support, casting doubt among some party leaders that their party can maintain its overwhelming parliamentary dominance.

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Zimbabwe land invasions

Mugabe suffered a serious setback in February when a constitutional referendum aimed at giving him the power to confiscate white-owned farms for redistribution to black families failed.

Almost immediately after that vote, veterans of Zimbabwe's war with Britain for independence, frustrated with the slow progress of land reform, launched an invasion of the farms. They were backed by Mugabe, who said white Britons had stolen the property from black Africans and that the land must be returned to its rightful owners, without compensation.

The farm invasions turned violent -- at least 27 people, including five farmers and most supporters of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), have been killed since February, and hundreds more injured.

Mugabe praised the veterans and their supporters, however, while denying his policies supporting them had created the atmosphere of violence.

"The country is ours and we have the sovereign right to our natural resources, and the greatest of these resources is land," he told a political rally on Thursday. "We will not settle for political power without economic power."

Opposition wary of sanctions

Mugabe, center, with government officials in Harare on Wednesday

But opposition parties and human rights and international officials have ascribed a more base purpose to Mugabe's support for the invasions. They say his fiery rhetoric is aimed at nothing less than shoring up support for his shaky party and ensuring a sound ZANU-PF victory.

"The war veterans are a controllable group with a clear structure and this group is now being used by the government," said Maina Kiai, the human rights group Amnesty International's Africa director. "Amnesty International believes that the climate is not conducive for free and fair elections."

Increasingly, international powers have been threatening sanctions against Zimbabwe's government. The U.S. Senate's powerful Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday voted to suspend assistance to the African nation until democracy is restored.

Danish officials have promised aid to back land reform, but only if the violence stops and the June 24-25 elections are declared free and fair.

Opposition leaders were pleased with the show of support for their cause, but cautioned that sanctions would likely hurt only Zimbabwean citizens who have already been victimized by bad government policy.

"As a general principle we are not in favor of sanctions against Zimbabwe because they hurt the ordinary public without necessarily resulting in a change in government policy," said Eddie Cross, the MDC's secretary for economic affairs.

"What we do welcome is the very strong condemnation of the failure by President Mugabe's government to adhere to fundamental principles as we go toward the elections," Cross added.

Mugabe hints at increase in farms list

But Mugabe was unfazed by the threat of sanctions, the international condemnation and the cries of protest from the opposition within his own country.

"I have vowed, and I vow again, that no matter how much we suffer, we will not give in," he said at Thursday's rally. "We just want our land."

Just a day earlier, he raised the stakes in the land reform controversy, telling party candidates that he was considering confiscating more than the 804 farms he listed last week as targets for the confiscation and the 37 already taken over.

"It's not just the 841 farms that we are looking at," he said. "We are looking at the totality of our land. If we allow others to own portions of it, it must be out of our own will, our own desire, our own charity -- not on the back of colonial history."

Thousands of war veterans have occupied more than 1,000 farms, and Mugabe has told them they will not be required to leave them until the land reform program is on track and moving forward.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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