MDC dismiss violence allegations

By Lance Guma
15 March 2007

Accusations by Zimbabwean authorities that the MDC has set up militia groups and is firebombing police stations around the country have been dismissed as an attempt to deflect attention from the police brutality dominating headlines around the world. State radio reported that 3 female police officers were injured, two of them seriously, when a house located inside a police camp was firebombed Tuesday evening. The reports say 2 of them are battling for their lives at Parirenyatwa Hospital. Its alleged the assailants cut a perimeter fence in Marimba Park and threw the bomb through an open window at one of the houses there. A police post in Mkoba, Gweru was allegedly bombed on the same night and five people arrested.
Nelson Chamisa, the spokesman for the Tsvangirai MDC recovering from injuries sustained from beatings in police custody, told Newsreel the government has a long history of creating situations to try and blame its opponents. He says the regime employed the same strategy over the murder of Bulawayo war veteran’s leader Cain Nkala and arrested several MDC activists who were later acquitted by the courts. Chamisa said another example of this strategy was the way the state planted an arms cache at the farm of former Chimanimani MP Roy Bennet who is now exiled in South Africa. ‘Every time the regime is cornered they resort to these sort of tactics,’ Chamisa said and he added that it was designed to divert international attention from the regimes brutality.

Meanwhile Newsreel spoke to the wife of Sam Sipepa Nkomo, the Chairman of Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe, publishers of the banned Daily News. Nkomo was arrested on Wednesday alongside 17 other MDC officials including Lovemore Moyo, the party’s Vice National chairperson. The group was arrested during a protest against police brutality organised by the Save Zimbabwe Campaign in Bulawayo. Amidst the commotion the whereabouts of Nkomo were not known on Wednesday, fueling concerns over his safety.

Mrs Nkomo however explained to Newsreel that her husband was picked up from his office in the city. She says he was escorted by over 8 police officers and that two police trucks were needed to transport all the others arrested. Nkomo was taken to Bulawayo Central police station before being moved to Queens Park station close to the airport in the city on Thursday. Mrs Nkomo has been allowed to bring him food and says he shows no sign of being assaulted. By late Thursday Nkomo had been moved back to the central station in the city. The entire group remained locked up at the time Newsreel went on air.

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