Zimbabwe Election Marked By Intimidation

Voters Led To Polls In One-Candidate Presidential Runoff That Is Expected To Deepen Crisis

(CBS/AP)  Roaming bands of government supporters heckled, harassed or threatened people into voting in a runoff election Friday in which President Robert Mugabe was the only candidate, ensuring he will remain in power despite international condemnation of the balloting as a sham.

Residents said they were forced to vote by threats of violence or arson from the Mugabe supporters, who searched for anyone without an ink-stained finger - the telltale sign that they had cast a ballot.

Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, who withdrew from the runoff after an onslaught of state-sponsored violence against his Democratic Movement for Change, said the results would "reflect only the fear of the people."

"What is happening today is not an election. It is an exercise in mass intimidation," he said at a news conference.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called the vote a "sham," and said the United States would use its position as president of the U.N. Security Council until July 1 to drive international condemnation of Mugabe's regime.

"Those operating in Zimbabwe should know that there are those ... who believe that the Security Council should consider sanctions," she said at a meeting in Japan. "We intend to bring up the issue of Zimbabwe in the council. We will see what the council decides to do."

U.S. Ambassador to Zimbabwe James McGee told CBS News recently that due to the fact that the new parliament was never convened, and only parliament can install a president, Mugabe is governing the country without any mandate - illegally. (Read more on McGee's interview.)

The presidents of Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda, in a rare comment about the affairs of another African country, said Zimbabwe's one-candidate runoff, "cannot be a solution," to the country's political crisis. The presidents, at a regular summit of the East African Community held in Kigali, Rwanda, urged Mugabe's and Tsvangirai's parties "to come together and work out an amicable solution through dialogue in the interest of all Zimbabweans."

Jacob Zuma, the head of South Africa's African National Congress, said the situation in Zimbabwe was "extremely difficult and distressing."

"We reiterate that the situation is now out of control," he said in Johannesburg, South Africa, in one of the few times a senior South African politician has openly criticized Mugabe. "Nothing short of a negotiated political arrangement will get Zimbabwe out of the conflict it has been plunged into."

European Union spokeswoman Krisztina Nagy said the election result will be "hollow and meaningless."

One of the few foreign journalists allowed into the country, Chris McGreal, told CBS News how voters were being terrorized:

"On the streets of the townships there are armed militias moving around, burning people out of their homes if they think they're opposition supporters, beating people up and snatching women and raping them. And I think that people are absolutely terrified in many places," reported McGreal.

A cell phone video showing police officers being forced to vote in front of their bosses, despite the fact that the election was supposed to be done by secret ballot, showed how corrupt the voting was, reports CBS News chief foreign affairs correspondent Lara Logan.

Reporters and independent observers in Harare saw low turnout. As polls closed at 7 p.m., officials at one Harare station said they hadn't seen a voter for several hours.

Paramilitary police in riot gear deployed in a central Harare park, then began patrolling the city. Marshals led some voters to polls, and militant Mugabe supporters roamed the streets, singing revolutionary songs, heckling people and asking why they were not voting.

Human rights activist Dusani Ncube estimated that fewer than 2,000 people voted in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe's second-largest city. But he said people in surrounding rural areas were told that if they did not vote their homes would be burned down.

Human rights groups have said tens of thousands of rural Zimbabweans had been displaced by campaign violence and would not be able to vote.

"I've got no option but to go and vote so that I can be safe," said a young woman selling tomatoes in Harare.

A gunman in civilian clothes was seen attacking a TV news cameraman and the voter he was interviewing on a Harare street, then forcing them into a police vehicle. In addition, two Zimbabwean freelance journalists were detained by police Friday as they waited to watch Mugabe vote at a Harare polling station.

Hundreds of journalists, mainly from Western media organizations, have been banned from covering Zimbabwe's elections.

Tsvangirai, whose name remained on the ballot because his withdrawal on Sunday came too late, said he still wanted negotiations about a transitional authority for Zimbabwe but was not sure whether he could talk with Mugabe, 84.

The two leaders have been under pressure to sit down and find a solution to the crisis in Zimbabwe.

Mugabe, who has been president since independence in 1980, offered an olive branch to the opposition Thursday, saying he was "open to discussion" with them.

He appeared jovial as he voted, telling a reporter in Harare he was feeling "very fit, very optimistic, upbeat and hungry."

Shortly after voting, Mugabe told Southern African Development Community observers he was confident he would be victorious, a spokesman for the key regional bloc said on Angolan state radio.

Marwick Khumalo, head of the Pan-African Parliament observer mission, told the BBC the mood in Harare was somber and that the turnout was low.

He said while walking in one high density suburb, observers mistook a long line of people for voters waiting at a polling station, only to find that the people were queuing for bread.

"It was quite a very long queue," he said.

Khumalo said he had not seen signs of intimidation and that the organization would make an announcement on the election on Sunday.

However, he said he had not seen "the ingredients that make this election free and fair."

Tsvangirai was first in a field of four in the March vote, an embarrassment to Mugabe. The official tally said he did not gain the votes necessary to avoid a runoff against Mugabe. Tsvangirai's party and its allies also won control of parliament in March, dislodging Mugabe's party for the first time since independence in 1980.

Mugabe was once hailed as a post-independence leader committed to development and reconciliation, but in recent years has been denounced as a dictator intent only on holding onto power through intimidation and election fraud.

Zimbabwe was the topic of long, closed-door discussions Friday in Egypt among foreign ministers gathered ahead of an African Union summit that begins Monday - and that Mugabe has said he will attend.

Some AU members say the runoff shouldn't have been held, while others, such as regional powerhouse South Africa, refuse to publicly criticize Mugabe even on that point.

"Our position is that the parties in Zimbabwe should work together for the future of Zimbabwe," South African Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma told AP Television News.

[terrorislami]

LEFT WINGNUT KOOL AID DRINKING BARKING MOONBATS LEAD THE CHORUS OF USEFUL IDIOTS,,,

"Zimbabwe: Leftists to blame for Robert Mugabe''s blood-letting"

"...So it is infuriating to hear some Leftists and liberals saying, through the teeth of their post-imperial guilt, that perhaps an armed intervention is the only way to rid the world of this brute. Had this been done years ago, when they took the opposite view, how many lives might have been saved? How many productive people, black and white, would have felt able to stay in Zimbabwe, rather than flee with their talents abroad? Would it still be a country with a life expectancy in the low thirties, something not heard of in Europe since the early Middle Ages? How proud does the Left, with its stupidly romantic notions of the inviolate nature of "black freedom fighters", feel about what it has so ably helped Mugabe achieve?"
http://crusader-rabbit.blogspot.com/2008/06/zimbabwe-leftists-to-blame-for-robert.html

[terrorislami]

YOU DO NOT WANT THE USA IN THE MIDDLE EAST?

BLAME THE DEMONIC-RATS

THE DEMONIC-RAT DOCTRINE,,,

On February 16, 1943, President Franklin D. Roosevelt said the "the defense of Saudi Arabia is vital to the defense of the United States." On February 14, 1945, while returning from the Yalta Conference, Roosevelt met with King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia on the Great Bitter Lake in the Suez Canal, the first time a U.S. president had visited the Persian Gulf region.

The Carter Doctrine was a policy proclaimed by President of the United States Jimmy Carter in his State of the Union Address on 23 January 1980, which stated that the United States would use military force if necessary to defend its national interests in the Persian Gulf region. The doctrine was a response to the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union, and was intended to deter the Soviet Union%u2014the Cold War adversary of the United States%u2014from seeking hegemony in the Persian Gulf. After stating that Soviet troops in Afghanistan posed "a grave threat to the free movement of Middle East oil," Carter proclaimed:

Let our position be absolutely clear: An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force. (full speech)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carter_Doctrine

[terrorislami]

Posted by Lucile4 at 08:43 AM : Jun 29, 2008

FASCIST NAZI TERRORISLAM IS THE PROBLEM,,,

DEMONIC-RAT HUSSEIN IS NOT THE SOLUTION,,,

[lucile4]

America and Britan are nations of cowards, drug dealers, terrorist and murderers of poor and oppressed people.

Racism has already destroyed them, it is only a matter of time before they collopse upon themselves on top of their neocoloneolist stooges and puppets.

Bush has murdered over a million people in Iraq, and the UN does not condeam him, US Congress does not impeach him, Obame supports his actions in Zimbabwe, and Israel wants to bomb Iran.

Have these people lost their collective minds?

If they are going to invade Zimbabwe and bomb Iran it will be the beginning of the end for them.....

An African American that supports Zimbabwe, the North Vietnamise people, Asuma Bin Laden, and all oppressed people engaged in armed struggle against America and it allies.

Curtis Mullins
African American Council

[karenaolson]

Zimbabwe is a nation of dirty animals ran by dirty animals. Let them kill each other. Who cares what they do, lets worry about America and the americans here that need help. Join us. www.theoandavirus.com

[downsteamjim]

''...One candidate runoff cannot be a solution'' What could Obama say other than ''Hey it worked for me.'' But of course the media cannot ask Obama this question.

[ubrew12]

Predator missile ---- Mugabe''s a*s

No other solution.

[rushlimpdrug]

What can

Oprah,
Angeline,
Brad,
Bono,
all do to help?

[inventagod2]

Intimidation?

Must have Repugs and Diebold, too...

[bubbabear200]

Give Georgie a half chance and he will start a war in Africa.

[zwe453]

IT MOMENTS LIKE THIS THAT MAKE ME SAY "I LOVE O.J! GREAT JOB O.J" HA/HA
MCCAIN 08! HA/HA

[zwe453]

I SEE ALL THESE RACIST POST ON HERE BUT NICOLE BROWN IS STILL BURNING! HA/HA. NEED SOME WATER NICOLE?
MCCAIN 08! HA/HA!

[bluestardad]

THANK YOU BRITIAN AND AMERICA FOR PUTTING THIS BEAST IN POWER!

THOUSANDS OF LIVES CRY OUT FOR JUSTICE BECAUSE OF YOUR INTERVENTION!

ANOTHER FORIEN POLICY FIASCO!

[faith_in_w]

terrorislami, gosh its terrible that tey called George the Honest a liar. What bad people they are!

[terrorislami]

typical and predictable,,, anytime you allow communist or fascist nazi terrorislam take over you will have a communist/terrorislam induced famine,,, it is happening in venezuela now,,, they also used to export food,,, now they too have to import food,,,

Zimbabwe suffers from an 80 percent unemployment rate and, according to the International Monetary Fund, an inflation rate exceeding 150,000 percent. Since 1994, the average life expectancy for women in Zimbabwe has fallen from 57 years to 34 years; among men it has dropped from 54 years to 37 years. Some 3,500 Zimbabweans die every week from the combined effects of HIV/AIDS, poverty, and malnutrition. Half a million Zimbabweans may have died since 2000, while some 3 million fled to South Africa alone.

A country that used to be called the %u201Cjewel%u201D and the %u201Cbreadbasket%u201D of Africa is now an Orwellian nightmare. With the economy in ruins and political freedom eviscerated, Zimbabwe%u2019s state-run media rail against a phantom international conspiracy consisting of Western powers and led by %u201Cliar%u201D George Bush, %u201Cgay%u201D Tony Blair, %u201Cuncle Tom%u201D Colin Powell, and %u201Ca slave to white masters%u201D Condoleezza Rice.
http://www.american.com/archive/2008/may-05-08/botswana-and-zimbabwe-a-tale-of-two-countries

[terrorislami]

World Condemnation Of Zimbabwe MUSLIM THUGS Grows
As Opposition Leader Calls For Peacekeepers, World Leaders Lament "Sham" Elections

Mugabe%u2019s Muslim Thugs Raid Christian Offices

Well, let%u2019s see; Zimbabwe%u2019s Muslim President, Robert Mugabe, has %u201Ccured AIDS,%u201D expelled ALL gayys, and now is cracking down on Christians%u2026 I smell genocide in the air%u2026

Zimbabwe Police Raid Christian Offices
Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Police raided Zimbabwe Christian Alliance offices on Monday and arrested five staff members for interrogation, the group reported.
Faced with the very real prospect of losing power, the 84-year-old Mugabe and his party the Zanu-PF party has resorted to violence, including an alleged plan to assassinate Tsvangirai and other key leaders of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change Party.

Under Mugabe, Zimbabwe which was once dubbed the breadbasket of southern Africa, has spiraled into an economic meltdown that includes an unemployment rate of about 80 percent and inflation at more than 100,000 percent.
http://doctorbulldog.wordpress.com/2008/06/11/mugabes-muslim-thugs-raid-christian-offices/

[terrorislami]

Posted by brianbwb at 05:45 AM : Jun 27, 2008
Posted by FeelFree4U at 04:59 AM : Jun 27, 2008

MUGABE/HUSSEIN IN 08

hmmmmmmm fascist nazi terrorislam backs mugabe/mug-me/bug-me,,, and fascist nazi terrorislam back husein,,,

COULD THIS BE A WARNING???

Islamic terrorists back Mugabe

Zanu-PF plots with a South African outlaw group to bring more terror to the country.

Four members of the military junta now ruling Zimbabwe in Mugabe''''''''''''''''s name are holding secret meetings with representatives of PAGAD, the notorious Islamic terrorist organisation based in Cape Town, South Africa.
http://www.zimbabwetoday.co.uk/2008/06/islamic-terrori.html

[brianbwb-2009]

Great picture there, is this a Freudian slip?

[feelfree4u]

Mugabe/Bush in ''08!