The ZANU PF Friday Arrest Ploy

Call me paranoid, but has anyone else noticed that pro-ZANU PF police seem to execute their arrest warrants on MDC personnel on a Friday?

That way, they have two full days of torture, questioning, bullying and badgering of the arrestees before they need to either get them to court - invariably to face trumped up charges, allow them access to lawyers or release them only for the whole process to be repeated the following weekend.

One would have thought that this sort of habit would have been guarded against in the Constitution of Zimbabwe, but since that document has been amended do many times by Mugabe, and even those parts unaffected by his amendments are no longer followed by the political police force, no amount of common decency is going to prevent this practise.

It happened again yesterday with the Minister of Power Development, Elton Mangoma, being arrested yet again although the reason behind the move is as yet unclear.

ZANU PF are in no rush to give the details of any crime he may have committed, and the police, overseen by Mugabe zealot Augustine Chihuri are not giving any clues as yet.

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“The Zimbabwe coalition government Power Development minister Elton Mangoma and MDC Deputy-Treasurer Energy has been arrested again.

“Honourable Elton Mangoma was this morning picked up by the police from his house. More details to follow,” read a cell phone text message sent by the Morgan Tsvangirai led Movement of Democratic Change’s (MDC-T) information department to a Radio VOP reporter.

When Radio VOP called Mangoma’s lawyer Selby Hwacha it had not yet been clear on why the MDC deputy treasurer general had been arrested.

“Call me later. I am actually on my way to the police. I do not know yet why he has been arrested,” said Hwacha.

Mangoma was arrested two weeks ago on alleged violation of tender procedures after he had allegedly ordered the country’s oil company, Noczim, to source diesel supplies from a little known South African company without going to tender.

He is out on bail and his trial is set to kick off on March 28.

Last week, the state media reported that Mangoma faced fresh charges after he allegedly instructed the cancellation of a tender involving the purchase and supply of prepayment revenue management system, meters and associated equipment, just as the winner was about to be announced.

The MDC believes that arrest of Mangoma and other MDC MPs is part of a renewed crackdown on ZANU PF opponents by President Robert Mugabe's regime.

The MDC is desperate for numbers in Parliament as the party is seeking to retain the speaker of the house of assembly's post which was rendered vacant after a Supreme Court ruling two weeks ago nullifying Lovemore Moyo's election to the influential post.”

When Mangoma was first arrested, allegedly frog-marched from his offices a couple of weeks ago, ZANU PF must have been aware that they had struck a nerve as MDC leader and Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai stated in an ensuing Press statement that he wanted a 'divorce' from ZANU PF.

I have written about this before. ZANU PF are happy to fiddle with the law, and make the MDC's life hell. They are intent on causing the coalition to collapse, but only want that collapse to happen on the words or actions of the MDC...

Robb WJ Ellis

The Bearded Man