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Yesterday I wrote on my main page of an intended memorial service by the MDC to remember those killed in political violence during the elections in 2008.
I wrote: "Obviously ZANU PF will keep a very close eye on proceedings - and, in all likelihood, will descend on the gathering, issuing beating to everybody and arresting those that are running the memorial. I would be very surprised if there is no altercation today."
You don't have to have a crystal ball to read the immediate future in Zimbabwe, and what I wrote came to pass...
"Heavily armed riot police on Wednesday afternoon violently disrupted a memorial service of four slain activists belonging to Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's faction of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC-T).
About 60 riot police descended at Warren Hills cemetery before proceeding to beat up hundreds of people that had thronged the cemetery for the unveiling of tombstones of the four MDC-T activists murdered in cold blood by state security agents in the run-up to the June 2008 presidential run-off.
People scurried in all direction while the gun and baton wielding police lashed out at people attending the service, forcing organisers to also flee from the cemetery.
The unveiling of the tombstones for Tonderai Ndira, Cain Nyeve, Better Chakururama and Godfrey Kaunzani - the for MDC-T activists whose decomposed and brutalised bodies were found dumped at farms in Mashonaland East - followed a memorial church service earlier in the day on Wednesday held at the Dutch Reformed Church."
The Commissioner-General has come out fighting saying that the MDC has been granted permission to hold various public events. That may be so, but when the event is broken up by baton wielding riot police, who do not hold back in giving any person who attends MDC public events a thorough beating.
The police cannot hide behind the idea that permission was given for the event, if they are using that permission to allow people to congregate together allowing the police to pick them off at leisure.
But ZANU PF, the Mugabe party that runs the Zimbabwe Republic Police in a manner that suits that party and no other, will allow the police to do anything they want to people who attend MDC meetings. Permission for the public event may have been given, but with a decidedly ulterior motive.
"The MDC-T claims the June 2008 polls left about 300 of its supporters' dead. Heal Zimbabwe sent electronic card invitation to the media for the memorial and unveiling of the tombstones for four MDC-T activists allegedly killed in cold blood by state security agents in state-sponsored violence in the run-up to presidential run-off in June 2008.
Tsvangirai said the murderers of the slain MDC-T activists must be brought to book."
ZANU PF are attempting to balance these claims with claims of their own that the mass grave 'discovered' in Mount Darwin contains bodies of their 'freedom fighters' slain by the Rhodesian security forces during the final days of the vicious bush war. They have not attempted to call in any forensic specialists, nor have they explained the presence of soft tissue, blood, hair and bodily fluids on bodies that have allegedly been there for over thirty years.
Robb WJ Ellis
The Bearded Man
