Mugabe's reign of terror worsens

NY Times/Houston Chronicle:

Hundreds of Zimbabwean political and civic advocates have been abducted and severely beaten in recent days by unidentified assailants, government critics said Wednesday, in dead-of-night assaults that appear to be part of a new government campaign to smother rising unrest.

The attacks came to light on Wednesday after hundreds of police raided the Harare headquarters of Zimbabwe's main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, and detained its best-known leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, and about 20 members.

Party officials said the police ransacked the offices, destroying furniture and taking stacks of documents. Attorneys for some advocates said they had been warned not to come to the central police station in Harare, the capital, in search of their clients because of the threat of violence against the lawyers.

The government has repeatedly denied any systematic repression of opposition members, saying it has acted solely to root out crimes.

A police spokesman said Wednesday that police were searching the opposition offices for firebombs.

Zimbabwe's news media have been filled in recent days with reports of Molotov-cocktail attacks on police stations, trains and stores, all of which the government has attributed to the Movement for Democratic Change.

The opposition party has called the firebombing reports lies, planted in the state-controlled news media to discredit critics.

Zimbabwe's government was broadly criticized after the police arrested and beat Tsvangirai and scores of other political and civic advocates two weeks ago, after they sought to hold what they described as a prayer meeting in Harare.

...
Zimbabwe is a case study in the failure of multilateralism. If the International Criminal Court were something besides a left wing conspiracy to thwart the US, it would have Mugabe on trial right now for his abuse of his own people. Instead it is a joke where liberals want to criminalize the overthrow of genocidal despots like Saddam.

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