On Thursday, Archbishop Desmond Tutu warned
Zimbabwe is staring into the abyss. Violence is growing and the people are suffering greatly as a result.
The Mugabe regime's violent suppression of its opposition is spiraling out of all bounds. The opposition has warned the situation is becoming a state of war. Reports of torture camps are becoming widespread.
Now, the ship An Yue Jiang, with its cargo of arms for Mugabe, which China claimed was returning home undelivered, is about to dock (or by now may have docked) in Luanda, Angola. Whether the arms will be unloaded there is still in question.
Meanwhile, Mugabe has moved more strongly still against the opposition MDC, raiding the MDC party headquarters.
Go to sokwanele to keep abreast of the situation.
I can't do much of a diary on this tonight. My previous diary has background on the situation, especially on the arms ship.
The arms ship may already be at Luanda's quays. The Angolan government, under pressure from other Southern African nations and from the US, says it will not allow the arms to be unloaded. The unions say the same, but the situation is very tricky, and an end-run is quite possible - probably far more possible in Luanda than it ever would have been in South Africa. There is a special envoy from Zimbabwe in Luanda right now as well, presumably arguing for the arms' release and transshipment. So the opposition does not trust that the arms will not be slipped off the ship and sent on to Zimbabwe.
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The MDC headquarters raid is a very bad sign that the country is falling into the abyss:
A statement said: "These armed police have taken hundreds of people that were now staying at the party headquarters running away from the different parts of Zimbabwe, where the regime has been unleashing brutal violence."
Spokesman Nelson Chamisa said supporters who came to the HQ after sustaining injuries in violence since the disputed March 29 elections were among those seized.
"They took everyone in the building, including those who had come just to seek medical care. They are trying to destroy evidence of their brutality," he said.
The article on sokwanele has a link to sokwanele's flickr stream, where some of that evidence is already documented. Some of the people whose scars are shown are, according to sokwanele, some of those arrested or re-arrested in the raid.
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But there's one more really nasty side to this story as of Friday:
South Africa may deport activists back to Zimbabwe.
Yes, that's right. A fair number of Zimbabweans are in SA legally and illegally, and more now, because of the horrible economic and political situation in their home country. Now, with the elections, there have been protests in the streets of South Africa (not just by Zimbabweans), including in front of the Chinese embassy.
Dozens of Zimbabweans were arrested on Friday outside the Chinese embassy in Pretoria during a protest over a ship that attempted to offload weapons destined for Zimbabwe, police said.
"A total of 129 protesters were arrested staging an illegal protest. The police asked them to disperse and they refused so, they were arrested," police spokesperson Inspector Malusi Msimang said.
"After their arrest, immigration officers were invited to determine their status. Only 18 of them are legally living in South Africa. The rest are illegal immigrants," he said.
(My emphasis.) There is a threat, now, that those illegal immigrants may be deported. Tossed into the abyss. Back to the land which is killing and torturing people who oppose the regime. This is one place action by individuals overseas may help. Sokwanele has addresses in their post about this, and in their action contact database.
Thus far, Amnesty International doesn't seem to have picked up their cause, though it's a natural for them. They do have two other items on the Zimbabwe situation, though, which I didn't see last time I looked, a few days ago. Always a good venue for action.
It's really late, and I can't post any more tonight. I'll see about updating tomorrow morning if there's more information.