Tsvangirai, Ncube to defuse SA tribal tensions

Tsvangirai, Ncube to defuse SA tribal tensions

• Man dead in MDC South Africa tribal clashes

• 42 MDC supporters arrested in clashes

• MDC rejects calls for Tsvangirai to resign

By Staff Reporter

ZIMBABWE'S opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leaders are scrambling to South Africa on Wednesday to defuse tensions between the party's supporters after five activists were arrested following violent tribal clashes which left a man dead and two missing.

The party's President Morgan Tsvangirai and secretary general Welshman Ncube are expected to read the riot act to the MDC's South African leadership, sources said.

New Zimbabwe.com exclusively revealed last week how a vicious war for the control of the opposition party in South Africa had led to the death of activist Lungile Moyo, originally from Lupane.

The rival groups of MDC supporters, one called MDC Zimbabwe Action Support Group (ZASG) and the other from the mainstream party, the MDC South Africa branch, have been battling for turf since last year, according to sources.

Sources say the former group is mainly composed of MDC activists who recently fled Zimbabwe, many of whom are on the police wanted list for alleged political offences. The group mainly has Shonas speakers.

On the other hand, MDC South Africa branch is said to be composed of mainly Zimbabweans who have been resident in South Africa for a long time, largely Ndebele speakers driven into exile by a post-independence army crackdown in the Matabeleland region. This group, according to sources, views ZASG as full of infiltrators and political opportunists.

Remember Moyo, the leader of ZASG told New Zimbabwe.com this week that two MDC activists and members of his group Liberty Ncube and Musa Mhlanga were still unaccounted for, almost two weeks after the clashes. The two were kidnapped at gunpoint outside the Royal Hotel, Hillbrow, in Johannesburg, and Moyo has given this website names of their alleged captors and the registration details of the car used. One of the people he named has since been arrested.

"Apparently the kidnappers work at the MDC security desk in Braamfontein and purport to be true MDC members," Moyo said. "However from what has transpired it becomes clear that their political affiliation, orientation, disposition and purpose are otherwise."

Describing the clashes as "an injury to political activism for exiled democracy advocates", Moyo appealed to the South African police to act swiftly to rescue the two activists alive or find their bodies.

"A search at mortuaries has yielded nothing, and each passing day gives us hope the two will be found alive," said Moyo who was acquitted last year on allegations of murdering war veterans leader Cain Nkala.
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