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| NEWS > 26 March 2007 |
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The Australian - Sydney,Austra
26 March 2007
This article appeared in the above title/site.
To view it in its entirity click this link.
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Despot dresses his thugs as po
ZIMBABWE President Robert Mugabe no longer trusts his police force and now relies on his poorly trained but vicious party militia to keep a growing opposition movement in check.
The violent repression of a protest march earlier this month and the savage beating of Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change, by men in police uniforms appeared to implicate the country's police force.
Now many think it was ruling party militants, using requisitioned police outfits, who were responsible for the dozens of injured, and the death of a family man shot while demonstrating against Mr Mugabe's rule.
"It's not the police carrying out these attacks. People were beaten up by war veterans and members of the youth brigade, who were in police uniforms," says John Makumbe, political science lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe in Harare.
The implication, he says, is that open violence against government critics is going to become increasingly common. It also reveals the growing isolation of Mr Mugabe, a president who can no longer depend on his police force to keep him in power.
"This was uncharacteristic of the police. It was the act of an untrained militia, who were reckless and could have killed many people," says Mr Makumbe.
This is not to say that up to now police have not enforced the increasingly oppressive laws of Mr Mugabe's Government. Yet, generally the police avoided outright violence, partly because the force's members were drawn from the same communities they would have to confront.
Senior police officials were usually careful in public statements to align the force with the law, rather than the Government. Rarely did the police force arbitrarily react with violence against Zimbabwean citizens.
As a result, people here still generally respect the police, and Zimbabwe is one of the most law-abiding countries in the region. One of the factors given for Zimbabweans' failure to organise the kind of mass action that helped undo the apartheid government in neighbouring South Africa is that people here have a tendency to respect authority.
The force has participated in international peacekeeping missions, usually with distinction.
In Harare, uniformed police officers can be seen waiting in line with civilians outside an auto teller or bread shop, without trying to force their way to the head of the queue.
Zimbabwe is also one of the few countries in Africa whose police do not usually carry guns.
"It is hard to believe that the same organisation that provides police officers who are supposedly the paragons of professional integrity and efficiency during international missions, is the same one accused of perpetrating these horrors at home," wrote a columnist in the latest edition of the independent Financial Gazette.
When a broad group of opposition organisations agreed to hold a mass demonstration a few weeks ago the Government probably feared that police officers might have stepped aside rather than confront the protesters.
"Mugabe always does this when he is desperate. In 2000, he ordered war veterans and other rogue elements to invade white farms because he feared he might lose an election," says MDC spokesman William Bango.
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