The Wardman Wire

I’m still on video today, but this is on a more serious note.

This is the first edition of Zimbabwe Tea Chicken News, made a week ago before the Movement for Democratic Change withdrew from the Zimbabwe Elections after extensive violence and intimidation, including getting on for 100 killings.

TC and Maud present the ZTV news. Headlines include Mugabe’s speech about war, Biti behind bars, SADC observers say all is well and 3 million face starvation.

In the meantime, Genocide Watch (a Washington-based Human Rights group) have put out a “Stage 6“warning:

Politicide Warning: Zimbabwe 19 June 2008

Zimbabwe’s run-off Presidential election on 27 June will take place in an atmosphere of terror. ZANU-PF militias, the Zimbabwe army and police, and ZANU-PF mobs have pushed Zimbabwe to Stage 6, the Preparation stage immediately preceding political massmurder.

Families of Zimbabwe’s opposition leaders are being targeted for brutal execution. The mutilated body of Abigail Chitoro, wife of the Mayor-elect of Harare, was found on Tuesday. Mr. Chitoro said, “The body was butchered. They had used heavy objects to crush the head. She still had the blindfold that my kid said they put on her head when they took themaway.”

In the last week there have been three reports of local MDC officials who fled their homes from marauding Zanu PF mobs and who had their homes burnt down. In each case their wives were put to death, two burnt alive, the other battered to death. Four other MDC leaders were also murdered this week, bringing the total of political assassinations to over one hundred in the last two months. Hundreds of other MDC supporters have been beaten and tortured. Murder and torture victims have had their ears, lips, and sexual organs cutoff.

Mutilation of bodies is one of the surest signs of the de-humanizing of targeted groups during genocide and politicide (political mass murder.) ZANU-PF’s hate speech, torture, and murder have terrorized Zimbabwe since the Movement for Democratic Change defeated Mugabe and the ZANU-PF in March’s elections. Now ZANU-PF has stepped up its violence to openly kill leaders of the MDC and their families. Such acts are prelude to every politicide orgenocide.

A sign of the gravity of the danger is the phenomenon of “mirroring,” a strange but common psychological mechanism of denial used by mass murderers. ZANU-PF spokesmen accuse their victims of being traitors or terrorists, when in fact ZANU-PF is the real perpetrator of atrocities. Mirroring is a predictor of intent to commit crimes against a targeted group.

The terror campaign is being directed by Air Marshall Perence Shiri, who was commander of the infamous North Korean trained Fifth Brigade, which carried out Mugabe’s genocide against the Matabele in 1983-84. Working with him is General Constantine Chiwanga, Commander of the Zimbabwe Army, and Sidney Sekeramayi, Minister of Defense, both of whom were senior officers directly involved in the 1983-84 genocide.

The military has taken effective control of Zimbabwe. With military support, gangs of ZANU-PF marauders sweep through villages at night, killing, torturing and raping MDC supporters. The Mugabe regime’s order to NGO and UN relief groups to stop distributing food to Zimbabwe’s starving people is a sign of complete contempt for human life.

President Mugabe’s open declaration that his followers would go to war rather than accept defeat in the election is a sign of the high probability that Zimbabwe is headed for a bloodbath.

1. Genocide Watch calls on Tanzania, the Chair of the African Union, to inform President Mugabe that if the election is followed by mass killing, African Union troops will intervene to stop it.

2. Genocide Watch calls on the United Nations Security Council to demand that Zimbabwe immediately restore direct food distribution to people in Zimbabwe by NGO and UN relief organizations.

3. Genocide Watch also calls on the United Nations Security Council to refer the situation in Zimbabwe to the International Criminal Court, so that those perpetrating the crimes against humanity there, including Mugabe himself, will be brought to justice.

No permalink, since Genocide Watch don’t have their site organised that way.

[Udpate 24/6 7pm: It is worth noting - of course - that the MDC have withdrawn from the Election. The poll will still be going ahead - without the opposition - in the atmosphere and practice of terror that have lead them to withdraw. To see one account of how Zimbabweans opposed to Mr Mugabe are feeling, read the essay "Today is the day democracy died in Zimbabwe" on the Sokwanele website].