ZANU-PF officials threaten The Zimbabwean newspaper vendor

By Tererai Karimakwenda
12 October 2006

Three ZANU-PF officials visited the home of a local distributor of The Zimbabwean newspaper in Murehwa last Saturday and threatened him with unspecified harm if he continued spreading the independent paper. The distributor did not want to be identified, so we will call him Gamuchirai instead. He told us the ruling party officials accused him of influencing people in the area to vote for the opposition. They informed him they had also visited one of his friends with the same message.

Gamuchirai identified them as the ZANU-PF political commissar for Murehwa district named Mashawa, a youth militia leader simply known as Smart and a woman from the ZANU-PF woman’s league structures whose name he did not know. They said the chef of the local district council wanted to meet him but he refused to go. It is at this point that Mashawa said things could get ugly if he continued distributing The Zimbabwean to vendors in the area.

Gamu told us opposition supporters and candidates in the area have all been harassed or intimidated as the rural district council elections approach. He said ZANU-PF threatens anyone seen to be sympathetic to the opposition. They even threatened the owner of the barber shop where the MDC candidate gets his hair cut. Rural council elections are currently scheduled for October 28.

Vendors who sell independent newspapers in Zimbabwe have for years been threatened, intimidated and even assaulted by ruling party thugs and officials who want only government sponsored media outlets to operate in the country. The government shut down all independent daily papers in the country and has allegedly infiltrated the remaining weeklies. Oppressive legislation was also passed which requires journalists and publishers to register with a government appointed media commission.