that the force, once respected throughout Africa and abroad, has been reduced to nothing more than a private militia, loyal only to Mugabe and Zanu (PF).
The gloves are now off – all pretence that ZRP is the people’s protector has obviously been abandoned. It is now police versus people.
The use of the Border Gezi youths – who are state-sponsored ruling party thugs – to disrupt the MDC meeting makes Mugabe nothing less than Africa’s latest warlord.
These militias have no mandate to maintain law and order in Zimbabwe. And indeed they do nothing of the sort. They are a criminal element and the mayhem they created in Highfield on Sunday is ample testimony of this.
We also condemn the report that ambulances – private, municipal and government – all failed to provide services to the many injured civilians on Sunday. We have it on good authority that the CIO gave orders that no ambulance should provide services in that area on Sunday.
This is a diabolical strategy, unprecedented even in the world’s most vicious war-torn areas, where medics and ambulances are always allowed through to attend to the injured – another world first for Zimbabwe’s cruel and heartless dictatorship.
No wonder regional leaders are, at last, beginning to distance themselves from the Harare regime. Even the Chinese president, Huu Jintao gave Zimbabwe a wide berth during his recent African safari despite Mugabe’s much-touted Look East foreign policy.
The past week has also seen him snubbed by his friends in Paris, who asked him NOT to attend personally their African jamboree but to send a representative. And the EU ministers voted unanimously to extend targeted measure against him and his cronies.
He is losing face all around the world and Sunday’s events must surely serve only to drive him further into political obscurity and disrepute.
Word for today 07
“The wicked will perish: The LORD’s enemies will be like the beauty of the fields, they will vanish – vanish like smoke. The wicked borrow and do not repay, but the righteous give generously. Those the LORD blesses will inherit the land, but those He curses will be cut off.” Psalm 37: 20-22