Mugabe backers threaten voters

Source: LA Times

At meetings across the nation, officials of Zimbabwe's ruling party have warned voters how they will know who casts ballots against longtime President Robert Mugabe in Friday's scheduled runoff election: serial numbers.

The officials tell people that the ballot number will allow the ruling party to identify who has voted for the opposition so that they can be killed later, according to people who attended meetings in three neighborhoods around Harare, the capital.

Ndaziweye, a 60-year-old domestic worker who asked to be identified only by her first name because of safety concerns, said she was forced by a group of youths to go to such a meeting of about 400 people on the outskirts of Harare on her way back from church Sunday.

..........

Opposition and human rights activists have also reported forced pungwes, or re-education meetings, across the nation to intimidate people into voting for the ruling ZANU-PF party through such methods as talking about ballot serial numbers. The meetings began a few weeks after the March 29 election, but have only recently been used to issue threats about the telltale runoff ballots.

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-zimbabwe25-2008jun25,0,1622473.story

x(

What an evil regime.

If for no other reason, I resent Mugabe for making me wistfully recall the Ian Smith days.

Now how screwed up is that?

We do know that Western intelligence agencies have used opposition groups and "refugees" and PR firms to manufacture propaganda for regime change when it suits them. I'm not saying these stories are untrue, but I do think that they should be viewed with a certain amount of caution. The principal problem with the West is not too little intervention but too much intervention in the internal affairs of developing countries.

http://avaaz.org/en/save_zimbabwe/


Whether it will have any effect, I've no idea; but I've signed it.

The UN is hoping a "Mandela" type rises up from south Africa to take over leadership on the continent......

Don't hold your breath Moon.

Putting a western face on peace keepers will most likely vulcanize the country into expelling the "invader colonialists"
?

Maybe the filthy rich Arab countries will....


LOL

that'll be the day