This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 HARARE 002094 
 
SIPDIS 
 
NSC FOR SENIOR AFRICA DIRECTOR J. FRAZER 
LONDON FOR C. GURNEY 
PARIS FOR C. NEARY 
NAIROBI FOR T. PFLAUMER 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/20/2013 
TAGS: PGOV ASEC PHUM ZI MDC
SUBJECT: MDC OFFICIAL ON POSSIBLE CIO INVOLVEMENT IN 
HARVEST HOUSE SHOOTINGS 
 
REF: (A) WDAYTON-EYOUNG TELCON/E-MAILS (B) FBIS 
 
     AFP20031020000058 (C) HARARE 1973 AND 
     PREVIOUS 
 
Classified By: Political officer Win Dayton under Section 1.5(b)(d), 
 
¶1.  (C) SUMMARY: The MDC's Chairman for Harare Morgan Femai 
related to poloff on October 20 a first person account of the 
shootings at MDC's Harvest House headquarters on October 18. 
The senior MDC official present when the events took place, 
Femai alleged that the shooter, Ronnie Chihota, was 
associated with the Central Intelligence Organization (CIO), 
which had taken charge of the case.  Femai reported that CIO 
personnel had beaten him and others at the site and had 
confiscated MDC training materials during their search of MDC 
headquarters.  END SUMMARY. 
 
¶2.  (C) According to Femai, he and just a few staff from the 
MDC's information department were at the office when events 
unfolded the morning of October 18.  He was leaving the 
building at about 11 a.m. when he noticed Chihota going into 
the building, sans jacket and  with a gun visible at his 
side.  Chihota was a lawyer who had an office in the 
building.  Three unarmed MDC-associated youths who were 
acting as building security yelled for him to stop and chased 
him up the stairs when he did not.  Femai said he heard five 
shots coming from the second floor, and then saw two of the 
MDC youths emerge wounded from the building.  The third was 
lying unconscious on the second floor.  Femai phone the 
police, who responded immediately.  When police asked who had 
shot the youths, Chihota said he did and turned his weapon 
over to police.  The three youths were put in the car of MDC 
MP from Hwange P. Nyoni, who had arrived at the scene, and 
taken to Avenues Clinic.  Femai went with them and police 
representatives, who asked him to return with them to Harvest 
House to identify the shooter and give an official account. 
The police assured him that Chihota would be prosecuted and 
would pay for his crime. 
 
¶3.  (C) Femai said that on his return to Harvest House, the 
CIO, who he said had been summoned by Chihota, had taken 
control of the situation, to the exclusion of the police. 
Femai alleged that CIO superiors at the scene instructed the 
police to "beat everybody, including onlookers." 
Nonetheless, MDC senior adviser Ian Makoni was invited up to 
the sixth floor for questioning; at Makoni's request, Femai 
accompanied.  On the sixth floor Femai was beaten by a man 
armed with an AK-47 and dressed in civilian garb.  He 
identified Femai as the senior MDC official for Harare and 
berated him for being a trouble-maker and pledged to "fix 
him".  Femai said he was beaten with fists and kicked until 
the security official tired, and was later beaten again until 
a senior official ordered the official to stop. 
 
¶4.  (C) According to Femai, Chihota was present all the 
while, insulting Femai and urging the official on in the 
beating.  During the beating, Chihota had exclaimed "you 
think you own this building but it is I who owns it," and 
dwelled on Femai's role in the suspension of municipal 
officials in Harare's tendentious local politics (ref C). 
Since the CIO had arrived, Chihota had changed his story to 
allege that he had chanced upon the three MDC youths engaged 
in a shootout at Harvest House among themselves; he had taken 
a stray bullet himself even as the others were shooting each 
other.  The security officials were using his story as a 
pretext to search MDC headquarters, ostensibly to find the 
guns used by the youths in their gunplay (none were found). 
Femai asserted that it also served as a pretext to place the 
three youths under guard at the hospital under suspicion of 
attempted murder, although Embassy has been unable to 
corroborate media reports that charges were filed against the 
youths.  The one critically injured had stabilized and the 
other two were out of danger but all could count on being 
tortured in an effort to influence their testimony, Femai 
asserted. 
 
¶5.  (C) Femai elaborated on Chihota's curious past contacts 
with the MDC.  Chihota rented a floor in Harvest House but 
had sublet most of it.  Femai only saw him there once every 
month or two and had never seen any clients visit him.  When 
Femai was arrested with other MDC members in April, Chihota 
had shown up at the police station and appeared to be giving 
instructions on who could be released.  Femai said that 
Chihota at that time had said "you can let the old man 
(Femai) go" until somebody told him that Femai was the MDC's 
Chairman for Harare.  The MDC, which Femai said owned Harvest 
House, concluded that Chihota was associated with the CIO and 
tried unsuccessfully to terminate his lease.  On October 17, 
Chihota reported to the police that there had been a 
kidnapping at Harvest House.  Femai said that the MDC had 
voluntarily opened its doors to the police, who found nothing 
in connection with their investigation of the report. 
 
¶6. (C) Femai speculated that Chihota may have been going 
after him when he entered the building that morning.  He 
noted that he had been the focus of Chihota's attention 
during the shootings' aftermath and observed that, as a 
leading figure in efforts to oust Harare's acting mayor (ref 
C), he was a natural target for ruling party interests.  He 
alleged further that the acting mayor's husband worked for 
the CIO. 
 
¶7.  (C) After Femai's beatings ceased, he telephoned MDC 
Secretary-General Welshman Ncube for help.  Ncube resisted 
 
SIPDIS 
but finally accepted Femai's invitation to come to the 
office.  On Ncube's arrival, the security official involved 
in the beating left.  Control of the office eventually was 
returned to the MDC, but not before officials had taken away 
certain organizational training material. 
 
¶8.  (C) COMMENT: State prosecution of the youths, should it 
proceed, would be consistent with a tradition of prosecuting 
victims in Zimbabwe.  In the absence of a regular independent 
press, associated MDC publicity will have increasing 
difficulty making use of such fodder for domestic political 
purposes, although the independent "Standard" ridiculed the 
police account of the incident in its Sunday edition.  The 
extent to which this incident stemmed from a premeditated 
government effort is difficult to assess: Chihota's behavior 
seems unlikely for either a lawyer-tenant or a CIO operative. 
 
SULLIVAN