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 03 HARARE 002401 
 
SIPDIS 
 
NSC FOR SENIOR AFRICA DIRECTOR J. FRAZER 
LONDON FOR C. GURNEY 
PARIS FOR C. NEARY 
NAIROBI FOR T. PFLAUMER 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/04/2012 
TAGS: PGOV PHUM PREL EAID ASEC ZI MDC ZANU PF
SUBJECT: GOZ VIOLENCE AGAINST MDC TARGETS COUNCILORS 
 
REF: A. HARARE 2354 
 
     ¶B. HARARE 2087 
     ¶C. HARARE 2193 
     ¶D. 01 HARARE 2171 
     ¶E. 01 HARARE 2594 
     ¶F. 01 HARARE 2774 
 
Classified By: Political Officer Audu Besmer for reasons 1.5 b/d 
 
Summary: 
-------- 
¶1. (C) Since the September 28 - 29 Rural District Council 
elections, ZANU-PF supporters have carried out a violent 
campaign of retribution against winning MDC councilors and 
MDC supporters in districts that elected MDC councilors.  At 
least one MDC supporter was beaten to death.  Winning (and 
losing) MDC councilor candidates, and polling agents have 
been beaten, ordinary MDC supporters have been beaten and 
raped, MDC supporters' houses have been burned, and MDC 
offices have been attacked.  Violence and food denial 
continue to be effective tactics, as feeding and protecting 
their families are higher priorities for most Zimbabwean 
oppositionists than challenging a government they despise. 
End Summary. 
 
¶2. (C) Since the September 28 - 29 Rural District Council 
elections, ZANU-PF supporters have carried out a campaign of 
retribution against winning MDC councilors and MDC supporters 
in districts that elected MDC councilors.  Other reports of 
violence spanning the election period are now surfacing. 
 
MDC Supporter Tortured and Killed 
--------------------------------- 
¶3. (U) On October 21 according to MDC officials and press 
reports MDC supporter Isaac Karimete died of wounds inflicted 
when he was abducted and tortured by ZANU-PF militia in the 
run-up to the Rural District Council elections in late 
September.  Karimete was one of more than a hundred MDC 
supporters who were abducted and taken to the Gunduza school 
in Gunduza, which was being used to detain and beat MDC 
supporters, one of three sites set up by ZANU-PF in 
Mashonaland Central province before the September 28 - 29 
elections.  (The other two were in Mushinye and Chimoyo.) 
Known or suspected MDC members were taken to these three 
sites, pressured to defect to ZANU-PF, and beaten or raped 
when they refused.  After Karimete's detention, militia 
members told him to leave his home in Muzarabani.  Though he 
was able to identify at least four of his assailants, there 
were no reports of arrests in the case. 
 
Winning Councilors and Losing Candidates Beaten 
--------------------------------------------- -- 
¶4. (C) According to press reports, on October 12 ZANU-PF 
supporters led by the party's Hwange East District Chairman 
and war veteran Gerald Moyo stoned and beat recently 
re-elected MDC Kamativi district councilor Matthew Ngwenya, 
and his wife in Kamativi, Matabeleland North.  According to 
Ngwenya, a mob of ZANU-PF supporters, including the losing 
ZANU-PF candidate, approached their home saying, "today you 
will be in trouble," and "we want you dead".  The losing 
candidate reportedly said, "we need to kill a donkey" 
referring to Ngwenya.  The mob stoned the house, breaking all 
the windows, and pried the doors off the hinges to get at the 
Ngwenyas.  They were force marched to a nearby bush area 
where they were separated and both beaten, Matthew to the 
point of unconsciousness.  When Poloff interviewed the couple 
at the Amani Trust offices (a local NGO treating victims of 
political violence) on October 24 in Bulawayo, they each had 
bruises and cuts over their faces and bodies, and Matthew's 
left arm was broken in two places.  The couple is afraid to 
return to Kamativi.  ZANU-PF officials had previously 
pressured Ngwenya to return to the party; he defected to MDC 
in July 2002 while serving as councilor of Kamativi. 
 
¶5. (U) According to MDC officials and press reports, on 
October 18  a truckload of ZANU-PF youth militia members 
allegedly sent by the ZANU-PF Provincial Chairman for 
Matabeleland North, Jacob Mudenda, beat MDC supporters and 16 
newly elected MDC councilors gathered for their swearing-in 
ceremony in Binga.  Jeffrey Nyoni, the MDC councilor for 
Silakenge ward, as well as Mr. Mdhimba, the ZANU-PF 
Provincial Administrator who oversaw the ceremony, were in 
critical condition as a result of the beating.  (Note: 
Mdhimba, though a ZANU-PF official, was beaten for organizing 
the swearing-in ceremony in accordance with his official 
duties.  End Note.) 
 
¶6. (U) According to MDC officials and press reports, on 
October 12  the newly elected councilor for Mzola ward in 
Nkayi, Matabeleland North, Themba Dlomo was addressing a 
post-election meeting when ZANU-PF supporters, led by war 
veteran Francis Nyoni, attacked everyone assembled.  Police 
responding to the scene arrested twenty-one MDC supporters, 
twelve of whom were remanded in custody and due to appear in 
Hwange Magistrate's Court on October 29.  There were no 
reports of ZANU-PF supporters arrested.  MDC officials 
reported that Nyoni and his group were planning to attack 
another MDC councilor, Thomas Nyathi, of Matshokotsha ward in 
the same constituency. 
 
¶7. (U) On October 1, according to MDC officials and press 
reports, the day after results of the Rural District Council 
elections were announced, unknown assailants assaulted Veni 
Muleya, a newly-elected MDC councilor in Mutsheseo ward in 
Binga, and Sofia Ngwenya, the MDC losing candidate for Tinde 
ward in Binga, and burnt their homes to the ground. 
 
¶8. (U) According to MDC officials and press reports, on 
September 28,  the first day of voting for the Rural District 
Council elections, ZANU-PF youths and war veterans assaulted 
and beat Francisca Ngwende, the MDC candidate for Murehwa 
South's ward 24, and her polling agents as they waited for 
transport to take them to polling stations.  Ngwende suffered 
a fractured left hand, and her polling agent, Rumbidzai 
Mutava, was hospitalized for injuries sustained in the 
attack.  On January 31 ZANU-PF supporters had burnt Ngwende 
and her husband's (who is a war veteran and MDC member) house 
to the ground.  Though the assailants are known in both 
cases, no arrests have been made. 
 
Polling Agents Arrested / Beaten 
-------------------------------- 
¶9. (U) On October 24, according to MDC officials and press 
reports, war veterans in Zaka assaulted and severely beat 
Last Njokoza, an MDC polling agent for the Rural Council 
elections.  The war veterans reportedly called a meeting on 
the pretext of distributing food.  They singled out MDC 
supporters in the crowd including Njokoza and several other 
polling agents and beat them in front of the crowd, 
threatening to beat anyone else who supported the MDC. 
Police said they were investigating the matter; no arrests 
were made. 
 
¶10. (U) According to press reports, on October 28 around 
midnight police arrested eleven MDC polling agents for the 
Insiza by-elections from their homes in the Bulawayo area. 
They were held for a day, assaulted, questioned and released. 
 According to press reports Bulawayo police spokesman, Smile 
Dube, refused to comment on what charges they faced. 
 
MDC Supporters Held During Elections, Beaten, Raped 
--------------------------------------------- ------ 
¶11. (U) According to MDC officials and press reports, on 
September 21 (a week before the Rural Council elections) 
ZANU-PF youths abducted Solomon Mazarire, the MDC Chairman 
for Chadereka ward in Muzarabani, in broad daylight from the 
vicinity of a ZANU-PF rally in Gunduza.  Addressing the 
rally, Nobbie Dzini, ZANU-PF MP for Muzarabani, criticized 
the youths for carrying out the operation in broad daylight 
and emphasized that such activities should be done at night 
so as to avoid notice.  Mazarire was held in Chimoyo and 
repeatedly beaten.  On September 22 ZANU-PF militia members 
abducted Mazaririe's wife Mercy, and their oldest daughter 
Lynette (18), from their home in Chadereka and held them in 
Gunduza.  Lillian (16) was detained briefly, but freed 
allegedly to take care of their other five children.  Militia 
members raped Lynette and beat both Mercy and Lynette with 
barbed wire and logs.  All three were released on October 11. 
 Militia members confiscated MDC material and maize from the 
Mazarire home and forced the family to leave Muzarabani. 
There were no reports of arrests. 
 
MDC Councilors Forced to Defect to ZANU-PF 
------------------------------------------ 
¶12. (U) According to MDC officials and press reports, ZANU-PF 
supporters have pressured MDC councilors to join ZANU-PF.  In 
Beedy (between Matobo and Kezi, Matabeleland South province) 
the recently elected MDC councilor was forced to defect to 
ZANU-PF.  To maintain the peace, his constituents have 
reportedly agreed to the switch--expected to be formalized 
soon.  In ward three in the Gwanda district of Matabeleland 
South, winning MDC councilor Nkanyiso Nala went into hiding 
and then defected to ZANU-PF. 
 
MDC Supporters' Homes Burned / Destroyed 
---------------------------------------- 
¶13. (C) On October 17 war veterans in Matobo (south of 
Bulawayo) burned to the ground the house of John Sibanda, 
allegedly because Sibanda is an MDC activist, and had refused 
a request by war veterans to be a "settler" on the nearby 
Godwin farm earlier this year.  In an interview with Poloff 
on October 24, Sibanda did not report any injury to his 
family, but recounted that five other homesteads of families 
who refused to be settlers have been burned in his area 
recently. 
 
MDC Offices Attacked / Damaged 
------------------------------ 
¶14. (U) According to press reports, on October 28 about 100 
ZANU-PF youths in Border Gezi "green bomber" uniforms 
attacked the MDC offices in Bulawayo with stones, bricks, 
axes, picks and logs.  The front of the building, office 
equipment in the front rooms, five party vehicles, and one 
private vehicle were damaged extensively in the 15-minute 
attack.  MDC officials reported the identities of many of the 
assailants to the police, who did not commit to investigating 
the crime.  On the same day, suspected MDC youths attacked a 
school in Bulawayo belonging to the ZANU-PF Deputy Political 
Commissar; the chronology of the two events is unclear. 
 
Comment: 
-------- 
¶15. (C) These cases suggest a campaign of retribution, 
organized and constructed to intimidate people and convince 
them to drop their support for the MDC.  The two-pronged 
strategy of violence and food denial is proving very 
effective at consolidating ZANU-PF's hold on power (Refs A, 
C), as Zimbabweans sympathetic to opposition views are 
understandably more interested in feeding their families and 
protecting them from harm than in challenging a regime they 
increasingly despise.  End Comment. 
SULLIVAN