Is there any one out there who is still surprised over the news that Mugabe's security men raided Morgan Tsvangirai's MDC's office in Harare today? I am the last person to be shaken by such news. Why? I had predicted barely 24 hours ago that like a wounded lion, Mugabe would move against Tsvangirai for trying to give the impression that he won the presidential poll.I had also predicted that Mugabe's ominous silence was merely to allow him time to perfect plans on how to stage a comeback after the electorate had given him a 'red card' in last week's presidential and parlimentary poll.
Now, the chickens have come home to roost. Apart from raiding the offices of the opposition party, which had only on Wednesday declared victory in both parliamentary and presidential vote, Mugabe's 'mad dogs' descended on journalists at the Meikles Hotel and arrested a number of foreign journalists, amongst them, New York Times correspondent, Barry Bearak, a winner of a 2002 Pulitzer Prize for allegedly violating journalism law.
These are issues that have nothing whatsoever to do with the main that is agitating the minds of ordinary Zimbabweans who trooped out last Saturday to vote for change in the poverty-ridden nation with over 100,000 percent inflation and unprecedented hunger and starvation.
While Mugabe uses iron fist to clamp down on the ordinary people, journalists and the opposition, the world is increasingly getting fed up with him. Like an opium, not even his comrade-in-chief and friend Hugo Chavez of Venezuela has come out openly to support him in his darkest moment.
New York-based Committee for the Protection of Journalists, CPJ, has condemned the arrest and detention of the journalists by the Zimbabwean security forces and has called for immediate release.
"It is imperative that all journalists, foreign and domestic, be allowed to work freely," said Joel Simon, the group's executive director.
Now, it is clear to the world that Mugabe has no intention to allow the will of the impoverished people of Zimbabwe to prevail over his inordinate ambition of presiding over the affairs of the country, which has been held hostage by him and other scavengers for about three decades.
Links: Guardian
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