HARARE – Tendai Marowa* (22) was fast asleep at his parents home in Nyamhara Village, Uzumba, when an army of over 30 people, all Zanu (PF) youths, armed with sticks and truncheons woke the whole family up at around 2 a.m last Tuesday, May13.They were looking for Tendai, who they accused of being a Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) supporter.
Luckily for Tendai, the hut in which he was sleeping is at the end of the homestead, so he remained inside while his uncle was being interrogated.My uncle told them I had not returned home that night and after a long argument they left, but promised to come back the following morning to deal with me, a visibly shaken Tendai narrated, who has since taken refuge at a friend’s home in Highfield.
As soon as they left I packed my few clothes and walked about 15 kilometres to the nearest bus station at Corner Store where I caught the earliest bus to Harare,According to Marowa the terror is perpetrated by a group of men believed to be soldiers, who are camped at Muskwe Township.They (soldiers) come in the company of Zanu (PF) militia youths, but all of them will be in civilian clothes, he said.There have been reports that this week alone three villagers were killed in Mudimu and Mushayahemembe villages in Uzumba. Marowa revealed that several houses in Nyamhara Village have been burnt and in Manyika Village a five-year-old baby was burnt to death.
Marowa is not the only one who has been displaced by the current terror, which, according to the MDC figures, has left more than 30 dead.According to the General Agriculture and Plantation Workers Union of Zimbabwe (GAPWUZ) which represents farm workers, over 40,000 families have been ejected from their farm homes.A 43-year-old Murewa woman, who identified herself as Esnath, revealed the horrible stories of terror at the farm where she lives. I ran away from Agos Farm because the youth militia was threatening me.Relating her ordeal, Esnath, who does not know how the family she left is surviving, said the war veterans are harassing the remaining white farm owners.
They visit the farm owners at night and demand cattle to slaughter to feed their youths in the camps she said.It was when they visited my home last week asking for mealie meal and I had none so they labelled me a traitor so I decided to take flight until the situation subsides, Esnath added.In an interview GAPWUZ Secretary General, Gertrude Hambira, said this crisis was being underestimated.Many people are dying in hospitals due to the injuries and some are dying on the spot. We have seen it on the farms, our members are being killed, Hambira added.
*(Not his real name)
Conditions in Zim not conducive for free, fair poll’
JOHANNESBURG – The Southern African Development Community (SADC) said on Wednesday, May 14 that conditions in Zimbabwe were not conducive for a free and fair second round presidential election, but rejected opposition calls to send peacekeepers.
 Zimbabwe holds a second presidential election on August 2 after the country’s electoral commission said opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai defeated President Robert Mugabe but failed to garner more than 50 percent of the vote required to takeover power. “At the moment we can’t say the playing ground is safe or will be fair, but we are there to create a conducive environment for everybody to be confident,” SADC Executive Secretary Tomaz Salomao told international media.
But the SADC chief ruled out sending peacekeepers, saying Zimbabwe was not at war. “We don’t have a war in Zimbabwe and what we need to do is to address the issue and create a conducive environment and not put up a standby peacekeeping force.” Morgan Tsvangirai has called for international observers and peacekeepers to deploy in Zimbabwe to help end political violence that broke out almost immediately after it became clear that the opposition leader and his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party had defeated Mugabe’s government in the March 29 polls.
The MDC says the violence, blamed on state security forces and militants of Mugabe’s ruling Zanu (PF) party, has killed 32 of its supporters and displaced thousands others. But the former ruling party denies committing violence and says it is the opposition that has carried out violence in a bid to tarnish Mugabe’s name.
 Meanwhile the United States (US) has offered to assist SADC, the African Union (AU) and the United Nations (UN) to create conducive conditions for a free and fair run-off election in Zimbabwe. US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Jendayi Frazer, in a statement on Tuesday, May 12 said conditions currently do not exist in Zimbabwe for the country to hold a free and fair run-off. She said Washington was “prepared to assist and support the creation of those conditions” by supporting organisations such as SADC, AU and UN. The US has also called on Harare to guarantee the safety for Tsvangirai, who has been in self-imposed exile since the March polls but is expected to return to Zimbabwe this week. – ZimOnline
Xenophobic attacks continue in Joburg
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BY TRUST MATSILELE
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JOHANNESBURG: South Africa’s Opposition party, the Democratic Alliance (DA) has called on the Pretoria regime to dispatch troops to Johannesburg’s war torn suburb of Alexandra that has left over 1,000 Zimbabweans homeless.
The recent attacks in Alexandra on hundreds of shacks, in which Zimbabweans were housing themselves, have evoked memories of the 2005 Operation Murambatsvina that saw homesteads being razed by Robert Mugabe’s hooligans.”The army could help strained police stop xenophobic attacks in Alexandra,” said the DA’s John Moodey.The call by the DA on May 14 came a few hours after the South Africa Communist Party with its tripartite alliance (COSATU) and ANC (African National Congress) leadership planning on Wednesday to visit refugees at the police station. “The army should only be used in a civilian context in case of serious emergency. But I believe we may have reached that stage,” added Moodey.



The South African Police Service (SAPS) have over the past three days failed to control rage of local residents complaining that Zimbabweans, Malawians, Mozambicans and other nationalities were taking their jobs and committing crimes in the area.”They should either be reinforced so that they can, or the army should be brought in to back them up.”The African National Congress’s Youth League ANCYL acknowledged that the attacks were based on the government’s failure to deliver but warned attacks on foreigners would jeopardize residents’ grievances from being heard.

”We call on communities both organised and unorganized to remain vigilant and protect the integrity of their struggles, and not to resort to violence,” said league spokesperson Zizi Kodwa.
Respected former president Nelson Mandela warned on May 13 against “destructive divisiveness” in the country.


“Remember the horror from which we came. Never forget the greatness of a nation that has overcome its division. Let us never descend into destructive divisiveness.”




The South African Human Rights Commission blamed the government over attacks on foreigners saying the situation was evidence of the inability of the government to deal with these matters effectively.
The South African Red Cross Society staff is at the meantime handing out canned goods, maize meal and toilet paper to the many foreigners who taking refugee at Police stations.