Mugabe forces mug the teachers

NY Times:

Zimbabwe’s ruling party, bent on retaining control after 28 years in power, has broadened its campaign of intimidation and violence to include teachers and even aid workers, disrupting education and basic care for tens of thousands of children across the country, according to humanitarian groups, union officials and the teachers themselves.

Teachers have been upbraided by the ruling party for allegedly siding with the opposition during the nation’s disputed March elections, in which they served as poll monitors. More than 2,700 of them have fled or been evicted from classrooms, the teachers’ union says. Dozens of schools have closed, the union says, and 121 are being used as bases for the ruling party’s youth militias as they harass and beat opponents in the countryside.

Beyond that, the United Nations Children’s Fund says that more than half the 55 nonprofit groups it recently surveyed have partly or fully suspended aid for orphans in Zimbabwe.

...

Human rights groups and diplomats contend that, despite its pronouncements to the contrary, the governing party is trying to win a runoff through intimidation, and there were indications on Wednesday that it planned to hold on to power at all costs. A member of ZANU-PF’s Politburo, speaking anonymously about its secret deliberations, said in an interview that the party had no intention of giving up power through the ballot box.

“We’re giving the people of Zimbabwe another opportunity to mend their ways, to vote properly,” the Politburo member said. “This is their last chance.”

...

This is bizarre. Democracy is to be just a pretense and if people don't vote the "right" way they are to be ignored, but punished. This is the Mugabe madness.

CNN reports that journalist and lawyers are also being pursued. A government spokesman makes the laughable claim that hose arrested "had no respect for the country's laws." If the rule of law existed in Zimbabwe, Mugabe would not be in power and abusing everyone who opposes his despotic tyranny.

The BBC reports that 40,000 farm workers have fled Mugabe's state terror campaign.