Report: Mugabe spread intimidation to UK

by Aamer Madhani

As the Bush administration weighs whether to introduce a United Nations resolution calling for sanctions against Zimbabwe following yesterday's controversial election, a newly published report charges that agents of Robert Mugabe intimidated members of the opposition movement living in Britain.

The report published in today's edition of The Independent says that members of the Mugabe-controlled Central Intelligence Organization have targeted some 4,000 Zimbawaeans living in Britain and aligned with the Movement for Democratic Change with threats against family members in Zimbabwe, menacing late-night phone calls and bogus messages saying that fundraising activities are cancelled or disrupted.

Morgan Tsvangirai, the MDC leader, beat Mugabe in the first round of the election on March 29, but fell short of the 50 percent threshold he needed to cross to avoid a run-off. Tsvangirai announced last week he was boycotting the election because of the wide-spread intimidation and harassment of his supporters.

After the first round of voting, about 90 of his supporters had been killed in attacks by pro-Mugabe thugs, and Tsvangirai claims that tens of thousands of his supporters have been driven from their homes.

The Bush administration and Britain pushed to have the UN declare the election illegitimate, but South African President Thabo Mbeki has thwarted official condemnation. Instead, the UN Security Council issued a statement yesterday saying it was a "matter of deep regret that the elections went ahead in these circumstances."

"The elections, if they can be called that, are a complete sham,'' U.S. State Department spokesman Tom Casey told reporters in Washington yesterday.

In the capital of Harare, voters were threatened with retaliation if they didn't show up to the polls and officials of Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front posed an intimidating presence at polling stations, according to published reports.

If the allegations that Mugabe decided to stretch his strong-arm tactics to the diaspora living abroad are true, it could help strengthen the U.S. and Britain's push for sanctions against Zimbabwe.

The Independent reports that Mugabe's operatives in Britain seemed particularly intent on stemming the flow of cash from London to Harare that was helping support the opposition's campaign.