Posted by Harare, October 24, 2009 – Police on Friday raided a house belonging to Movement Democratic Change secretary general and Zimbabwe’s Finance Minister, Tendai Biti in search of guns said to have been stolen from the army headquarters, KG6 on Thursday.
UPDATE 1:
Zimbabwe police raided a house used by executives of the prime minister’s party, saying they were searching for weapons, the country’s finance minister said on Saturday.
Tendai Biti, secretary-general of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change, said about 50 armed police “ransacked” the house in a Harare suburb on Friday night.
He said a guard, Moffat Nyandure, and his wife were assaulted. Police told Nyandure to dig in the yard around the house in search of weapons, he said. Nyandure was made to dig with his bare hands for five hours.
A room occupied by a party official, who was at the house at the time of the raid, was searched and “valuable party documents” were taken, Biti said. Police “claimed” they had a search warrant, he said.
The house is used by MDC executives who visit from outside of the capital. Police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena had no immediate comment.
Biti said the raid was “provocation” by President Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party who wanted to see the unity government fail.
“They are behind this attack. Our decision of pulling out of the inclusive government infuriated ZANU-PF and this is the price we now pay for that decision,” Biti said.
Tsvangirai withdrew temporarily from the coalition on Oct. 16. The unity government was formed in February after disputed elections last year.
While both parties say they remain committed to the coalition, many feel it is doomed to collapse.
Mugabe’s long-time rival, Tsvangirai has condemned unilateral moves by the president to fill government posts, continuing human rights violations and attacks on activists by ZANU-PF militants and security forces.
But the catalyst for Tsvangirai’s withdrawal was the case against Roy Bennett, a popular party member nominated by the prime minister as deputy agriculture minister.
Prosecutors unsuccessfully tried to send Bennett back to jail to await trial on charges linked to discredited allegations that he had plotted the violent overthrow of Mugabe.
“These acts of harassment are an attempt to intimidate us but we will not be intimidated and our disengagement will not be reversed until outstanding issues are resolved,” Biti told reporters Saturday.
Mugabe, 84, has ruled Zimbabwe since independence from Britain in 1980.
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Reports say 17 AK47 rifles were stolen from the army headquarters in Harare on Thursday.
MDC spokesperson Nelson Chamisa confirmed the raid incident saying no one had been arrested yet.
The raid, the first such incident since the formation of the unity government in February this year, could signal the first signs of a crackdown on the MDC for its recent decision to disengage from Zanu PF.
Chamisa said his party’s concerns were not just about any arrests on party functionaries but were about the renewed culture of retribution by Zanu PF on his party.
The MDC boycotted cabinet and council of ministers in protest over President Robert Mugabe’s unwillingness to stick by the terms of the unity agreement signed by Zanu PF and the two MDC formations September last year.
Tsvangirai is currently on a tour of SADC countries to drum up support for his party’s pull out from the two institutions.
President Mugabe, who has been accused of using brute force to keep himself in power, on Friday described the MDC’s decision to pull out of cabinet as an act of desperation and a non-event.
Dozens of MDC and human rights activists were seized by secret agents in October last year and kept in secret detention for two months only to be produced in court on December 22 facing charges of plotting to overthrow the long serving leader.
The case collapsed after the Supreme Court barred the trial of the activists who had sought a permanent stay of prosecution arguing their arrest and detention was in violation of their fundamental rights.
Biti was also arrested just before the violent June 27, 2008 Presidential run off elections on charges of treason. President Mugabe’s government was accusing the MDC legislator of authoring a document which purportedly spelt out an elaborate plan by the MDC to seize power from his party.
MDC treasurer general and deputy minister designate Roy Bennett will next week stand trial at the High Court on terrorism charges of possession weapons for purposes of banditry.
he he he zanu ndeyemapenzi sure! so now they are accusing Biti of being a thief? quite rich coming from the mobs themselves. i’m sure Biti would have found it better/easier to use IMF money to purchase weapons from abroad instead of “stealing” worn out ones?. Biti angazotanga kuba maguns when he can help himslf to money and live in luxury like the rest of the cronies have been and are doing at the expense of ordinary Zimbos, He would be a fool to choose war over luxury!
there was me thinking masoja nemapurisa are are on zanu’s side, HOW could Biti or and MDC have possibly stolen weapons? i mean the army and police are controlled by zanu croonies they are the same people unleashing violence on thier fellow countrymen why then would they steal weapons for MDCs benefit? let alone Biti’s or Morgan’s?. I mean the allegations are insane! zanu yazoperwrwa manje, these guys are behaving like headless chickens, not like the “scholars” Abero would like to make them out to be
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I am just picturing this: Imagine Tendai Biti wearing sandals (to avoid making foot noise) and possibly wearing face masks and straight goes to the place where guns are kept at ZNA. In order to open the door, he bypasses the soldiers guarding the premises and in he goes. He collects a bundle of AK47′s numbering maybe 1000, puts them on his head like firewood and goes trotting back to harvest House with his loot! Hahaha. ZANU(PF) sure is now a laughable party. They allow the CIO to take them for fools. Little does Mugabe know that he is being taken for a ride by these junior CIO’s who just are extorting money from him (Mugabe). They create very stupid stories like that of people wanting to spill oil on Mutare road so that Mugabe’s car can veer off the road…hahaha, or conniving with a n’anga who claims that she found pure diesel in a rock, after that they hide the woman and the courts are told not to pursue her..hahaha
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This just makes you sick ! every time things don’t go Mugabe’s way, he is out arresting everybody on trumped up charges. When will this stupidity ever end for Zimbabwe’s sake. I don’t think until Mugabe finally kick’s the bucket.
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Steve, that will go on as long as weak buffons, masquerading as equal partners , allow him.
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Abel, you want to suggest that Tsvangirai is a weak ‘buffon’ but then he is trying and you are not. Are you going to mend Zimbabwe just by typing and nothing more?
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I will do it by pointing where he is going wrong unlike you who will urge him onto a garden path.
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I have said it before Zanupf was riled by the MDc decision but pretend it was a nonevent. i am tired of this website claiming my email is not valid when I use it to recieve mail all the time.
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Something is wrong with Zanu pf leadership ,surely this shud stop ,how on earth cud someone sent police officers to go and do that. Who is giving such orders?.Is our president still in charge of our forces?.
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Be very afraind. We will have a state of emergency very soon. Why did the GPA negotiators allow an unlected president to make such decisions as dclariong war or a state of emergecy. Remember what happened soon after ZAPU leaders resigned in protest from a GNU soon after 1980. This is not funny. We should all be praying for God to intervene in the best way possible.
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Mthwakazi, it was all Mbeki and Mugabe’s plan to be seen doing something about the coup de tat which Mugabe and his military had staged. They had to be seen accomodating the winners into a government already taken over by the gun. It was a military coup. And its all about diamonds stretching from DRC to Angola and of late to Zimbabwe(Chiadzwa). Mbeki could not steal from the SA coffers because they have chekcs and balances. But he built his own version of Gracelands in Pretoria. With whose money? Diamonds, blood diamonds thats what Zimbabweans are dying for.
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Sheppy you forgot to add that the MDC has also been given a taste of the sweet diamonds money and I tell you they are stuffing them empty pockets as quickly as they can and you and I are left to squabble on behalf of our leaders while they chew.Politics!!!
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