Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Harare (Fides Service)- The crisis in Zimbabwe is ever more serious. The people are desperate. In the past few days there were attacks with rudimental firebombs. The local police said that during riots in Harare on 24 March demonstrators threw firebombs at a supermarket. The day before tear gas bombs and firebombs were thrown inside a train for Bulawayo carrying 750 passengers which had stopped at a station. At least 5 injured passengers were taken to hospital, including a pregnant mother who lost her child. On the same day in Mutare, 300 km from Harare, unidentified men threw firebombs at the local police station. No one was hurt.
The security authorities blamed militants of the main opposition party Democratic Movement for Change (MDC), for the assaults and announced that the police forces had been authorised to use firearms to stop violence. The Party leaders said they had nothing to do with it and that this was an act of provocation on the part of the local secret services to attribute terrorist activity to the Opposition in order alienate it from public support.
President Robert Mugabe faces opposition in his own party ZANU-PF. With Zimbabwe in such a tragic situation, no work and one of the world’s highest inflation rates, the collapsed once flourishing agricultural sector, in the governing party malcontent is growing among those who no longer want to be identified with Mugabe. The President had to give in to members of his own party who refused to extend his mandate to 2010. Presidential elections will be held as planned in 2008. Mugabe announced that he will stand in the elections. But young members of ZANU-PF seem to prefer army leader Solomon Mujuru, leader of opposition in the party. In December 2004 Mugabe appointed Mujuru’s wife, Joyce vice president. Several observers saw the appointment as a prelude to succession to Mugabe, who would appear however to have changed his mind.
Western governments are ever more convinced that hopes for change in Zimbabwe lie with dissident currents of the ZANU-PF, and that Opposition parties alone will never convince Mugabe to resign..
The Catholic Archbishop of Bulawayo, Pius Ncube, urged the people to stage peaceful demonstrations to call for the resignation of the president.
The Zimbabwe crisis will be discussed at a special summit of heads of state of SADC member countries, Southern African Development Community, which starts tomorrow 28 March in Dar es Salaam the capital of Tanzania. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides 27/3/2007 righe 40 parole 524)
