The councillor and polling agents, including youth activist Innocent Njova,were abducted at gun-point after a mob, which must have included the police, used sniffer dogs to track them down in the hills where they have been hiding for the last two weeks.Two weeks ago, the village headman, who is a cousin of the councillor and a rival for the Kwenda chieftainship, went around the village making villagers sign statements that they had voted for the MDC, but they would never do so again.He also confiscated their t-shirts and went around with youths destroying the shops of MDC activists.
If no action is taken quickly they are going to kill him. This is what they are doing, killing the winners so that you can have bi-elections, and no opposition person will run in the election for fear of being killed, said our source.Councillor Rusere from Shumba in the same area, has already died in Harare were he was receiving treatment after torture.An MDC spokesperson said the government was trying the same strategy which it used after the 2000 referendum when they beat and tortured people up to two weeks before the election.
They stopped at the same time that the election observers came into the country, then the election was held and declared to be free of violence, yet the violence had already affected the voting.
This is why Morgan Tsvangirai has said observers and peacekeepers should be in place by June 1, but it does not look like we are going to get that. If you ask me, I think President Mbeki is complicit in this.