MDC launches probe into weekend clashes

MDC launches probe into weekend clashes

UNDER FIRE: Tsvangirai

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• Chamisa rants at media as pressure piles on Tsvangirai

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• Lovemore Moyo: MDC standing committee 'empowered to fire Matibenga'

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• Dr Alex T. Magaisa: Matibenga and power politics in the MDC

• Obert Madondo: Tsvangirai must go

• Tsvangirai calls crisis meeting over Matibenga

• Sekai Holland: Male chauvinism betrays MDC

• MDC edges closer to fresh split

• Grace Kwinjeh: Dongo and Matibenga - history repeating itself

• High Court orders MDC congress to determine Matibewnga's fate

• MDC accused of lying over cause of Tsvangirai aide's death

• Minister promised action on violence: MDC

• Tsvangirai 'breaking MDC constitution left, right and centre'

• Mohadi summons Tsvangirai over violence claims

• Sparks fly as UK MDC executive deposed

• Zimbabwe withdraws terror charges against MDC activists

• 'Disorderly conduct' charge for Tsvangirai

• MDC committed to Mbeki mediation - Chamisa

• Misihairabwi & Stevenson: Blame it on the woman!

• Paul Themba Nyathi: What is the role of 'The Zimbabwean' in fight for democracy?

• MDC says death threats made against MP

• Mutambara: Embracing legacy of Zimbabwe's heroes

• Last MDC activists held over bomb attacks freed

• Zim opposition needs leadership renewal -analysts

• 'We'll confront and decimate Mugabe, Tsvangirai'

• Mutambara: Tsvangirai 'weak and indecisive'

• Police faked evidence against alleged bombers

• Statement regarding MDC unity negotiations

• MDC says emigration hurts prospects

• Harare rally ban further extended

• 5 MDC petrol bomb suspects freed

• Mutambara gets passport, off to Europe

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• Courage Shumba: MDC losing moral and political authority to oppose

By Torby Chimhashu

A FACTION of Zimbabwe’s opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) on Monday vowed to launch an urgent probe into intra-party weekend violence which also targeted journalists.

The announcement came as two groups aligned with the party – the National Constitutional Assembly and Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition – warned the MDC had diminished its democratic credentials by using violence to resolve internal disputes.

NCA chairman Lovemore Madhuku said Morgan Tsvangirai, who leads a faction of the divided MDC, had made “so many mistakes that make him unfit to govern and to be President of this country”.

Elias Mudzuri, the organising secretary of Tsvangirai’s faction of the MDC, claimed “hired” elements were behind Sunday’s violence which targeted supporters of Lucia Matibenga, the former head of the party’s women’s wing ousted in favour of one of Tsvangirai’s allies, Theresa Makone.

Several people were reported injured when youths aligned to Tsvangirai attacked Matibenga’s supporters who were marching to the Harvest House party HQ in Harare where Tsvangirai was meeting district and provincial officials.

Two journalists, Frank Chikowore and John Nyashanu, had to beat a hasty retreat. Chikowore, a freelance journalist, said the youths charged at him “menacingly”, intent on preventing him from interviewing Matibenga. Nyashanu, a correspondent for the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), said he fled in his car when Tsvangirai’s shock troops “charged at me like lions…I had to retreat to my car at the speed of lightning.”

Mudzuri said: “I have heard that there was violence around Harvest House and I think our people, if they are ours, if they are our members…that must be condemned in its fullest form if anyone committed violence.

“The worst thing is we cannot accept violence especially against women or even men. Anyone who committed any form of violence is subject to disciplinary action and we will take disciplinary action on all our structural members.”

Mudzuri appeared to reject accusations that Tsvangirai’s supporters were behind the violence.

He said: “To me they are hired thugs. MDC is a general term; anyone who supports MDC becomes covered by that but when it comes to our membership if we are particularly saying so and so is so and so, then we investigate and deal with that.”

The refusal to accept responsibility riled civic groups.

Pedzisai Ruhanya, the senior programs officer at the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition said: “The youths who are allegedly abusing people, who are allegedly doing all sorts of violence do that in the name of the president. They are saying those who are complaining about the procedural manner in which the Lucia Matibenga case was dealt with are disrespecting their leader Morgan Tsvangirai.”

Ruhanya, a former reporter with the banned Daily News newspaper, said it was futile for the MDC to disown its own supporters.

He said: “It would be a lie to say these youths are not from the MDC. These youths are members of the MDC, so there is no question about the identity of the youths who assaulted the women and the people who assaulted journalists.

“I think this incident demystifies the position that the MDC has always tried to put across that they are a democratic party because if they are a democratic party, they must understand the role of the media in a democratic country or in a democratic environment.

“The role of the media is not to be a lapdog of those who are in power or those who have power; like what the MDC is, the role of the media is to report accurately the way they see events unfolding not to report what the MDC leadership wants to hear.”

Analysts have warned that the MDC could disintegrate further just a few months before synchronised presidential and parliamentary elections set for March 2008. The party already exists in two factions, with the other group led by former NASA rocket scientist Arthur Mutambara. The two groups share an almost equal number of MPs in parliament following the October 2005 split, partly blamed on violence by Tsvangirai’s loyalists on officials who disagreed with him.

The NCA’s Madhuku said the 2008 elections were Tsvangirai’s last chance saloon.

“Tsvangirai would have failed as a leader (if he loses),” Madhuku said in an exclusive interview with New Zimbabwe.com. “The only honourable thing to do would be to step down and allow a new leader to take over at the MDC or risk losing credible people. If he refuses, surely he would have authored conflict.”

"In any case, three quarters of his executive does not agree with him anymore"

LOVEMORE MADHUKU

Madhuku, a constitutional law expert, said it was unlikely there would be any political party entering the political arena between now and elections.

He said: “There won’t be a new force or the third way. The MDC of Tsvangirai will go into the polls as it is – divided. I think Tsvangirai knows he would have failed the struggle if he refuses to step down. In any case, three quarters of his executive does not agree with him anymore.”

The NCA chief said Tsvangirai had now become a “difficult candidate” to replace President Robert Mugabe following his blunders, the latest being the violence against party members opposed to his leadership style.

Said Madhuku: “If he can’t respect his colleagues and members of the party, then there is no need for his people to have confidence in him.

“You have the MDC on one hand complaining to South African President Thabo Mbeki of violence against its members by Zanu PF. On the other hand, you have violence within the MDC perpetrated against the same members of the same party by thugs within the same movement.

“It’s like taking two guns and you give one each to Tsvangirai and Mugabe and then decide to be killed by the one held by Tsvangirai, fully knowing that both are killers.

“Whichever gun fires at you, it will kill you. So violence is violence and it does not cease to be that because it is coming from the MDC. If you condemn violence in its strongest terms, then it must be stopped in totality.”

Madhuku refused to accept that the current clashes in the MDC were a result of infiltration by the intelligence services, arguing that such activities have always been there in any political party.

“The intelligence works on what it finds. If it finds you have a weakness for money, they corrupt you. In the MDC they have found intolerance and people anxious to use violence. People can get away with being violent against each other,” Madhuku said.
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