Mugabe gains sweeping new powers

The bills will strengthen Mugabe's position

HARARE, Zimbabwe -- The Zimbabwe parliament has passed two controversial bills which critics say are designed to stifle dissent ahead of President Robert Mugabe's re-election bid in March.

The main opposition party immediately branded the laws a "package of fascist rules" and said it would appeal against them in court.

The Public Order and Security Bill, which gives the government sweeping powers to clamp down on the opposition, was passed by acclamation and not by formal vote.

"They ayes have it," Deputy Speaker Edna Madzongwe said.

The bill gives the government powers to "protect public order and security and to deal with acts of insurgency, banditry, sabotage, terrorism, treason and subversion."

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Penalties for these offences are life imprisonment or death.

Parliament also passed the General Laws Amendment Bill, which will ban independent election monitors, by 62 votes to 49. Mugabe's party, the ZANU-PF, holds 93 of the 150 parliamentary seats.

Journalist Andrtew Meldrum of The Economist said the decision caused "quite an uproar."

He said opposition MPs in parliament fell to their knees and prayed for Zimbabwe to be delivered from "the devil's work."

Critics of the security bill say it will stifle opposition in the run-up to the presidential elections, named for March 9 and 10.

The bill outlaws publishing or communicating "false statements prejudicial to the state or that incite public disorder, violence, affect defence and economic interests of the country or undermine confidence in security forces."

It also bars public gatherings "to conduct riots, disorder or intolerance" and makes it illegal "to undermine the authority of the president by making statements or publishing statements that provoke hostility."

The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said it would launch a legal appeal.

"We are going to challenge this package of fascist rules in the courts. They are trying to clothe fascism with this whole set of bills," MDC foreign affairs secretary Tendai Biti told journalists outside parliament.

Parliament was adjourned until next Tuesday, when ZANU-PF plans to push through the Access to Information and Privacy Bill, a wide ranging law that will restrict the media.

Mugabe received a boost from army leaders on Wednesday when the country's top military brass signalled they would not tolerate an opposition victory.

Defence forces commander General Vitalis Zvinavashe said in a statement: "The security organisations will only stand in support of those political leaders that will pursue Zimbabwean values, traditions and beliefs for thousands of lives lost in pursuit of Zimbabwe's hard-won independence."

He was referring to Zimbabwe's liberation war in the 1970s against white-minority rule. Veterans of that struggle have led the invasions of white farms as part of Mugabe's land reform programme and are staunch loyalists of the president.

The 77-year-old leader is under pressure from the international community for his alleged human rights' violations, land reform programme and the downturn in the economy.

Observers say the military's move effectively excludes Mugabe's main opposition figure, former trade unionist Morgan Tsvangirai, head of the MDC.

Mugabe faces growing international pressure, with Britain pressing for Zimbabwe's suspension from the Commonwealth at the group's heads of government meeting in Australia early in March.

Britain's development minister Clare Short, who is attending an African regional conference in Sudan, told the BBC that the Zimbabwe economic crisis was a tragedy of "enormous proportions."

"Now this is a country that was very developed, had good indicators of social development, a highly educated population, very fertile, should have been an engine of economic growth and development in Africa that is going ever downwards, its economy wrecked, brutalism in its politics," she said.

Tsvangirai told CNN he expected a meeting in Brussels between the EU and the Zimbabwean government on Friday to do little to improve the situation.

He said theree had ben "a de facto coup" and said the main opposition party had been "threatened and attacked."

"The legislation is so draconian it even surpasses Ian Smith's own legislation during the liberation struggle." (Ian Smith was the prime minister of the then white-run Rhodesia).

Members of the European Parliament have accused the EU of moving too slowly and cautiously against Mugabe, but diplomats say they are following legal procedures and warn that hasty moves could harm the poorest people in Zimbabwe.

In New York, the international Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemned the bill restricting the media.

"The government's subversion of parliamentary procedure, in order to get this bill passed, is further evidence of its desperate desire to silence all independent reporting in Zimbabwe," CPJ Executive Director Ann Cooper said in a statement.

The Economist's Meldrum said there was anger among Zimbabweans about the state of the economy, with 100 percent inflation.

He told how he witnessed "a mini riot" in a supermarket with a shortage of basic goods like cooking oil.