Zimbabwean ruling party accused of using youth militias

ZIMBABWE’S ZANU-PF party has been accused of reviving the youth militia groups it used to wage a terror campaign against political opponents in the run-up to the disputed 2008 presidential run-off.

Rights group Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition said in a report it posted online on Tuesday that six different groups were harassing and intimidating people around the country ahead of a referendum in the coming months and a general election expected next year.

At least 200 supporters of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change were killed by Zanu-PF youth militias in 2008, and thousands more rural people were displaced in the weeks leading up to the presidential run- off between Robert Mugabe and then opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai.

In an interview with the Crisis Report Team, Sechmore Muringani, a local living in Kwekwe, a city in central Zimbabwe, confirmed said that a Zanu-PF youth group called al-Shabaab had evicted local shop owners from their business premises and taken them over under the guise of youth empowerment.

The revelation comes only a month after Mr Mugabe called for an end to violence and hostility as the county moved towards elections.

Elsewhere it was reported in Zimbabwe’s News Day newspaper yesterday that Mr Mugabe and his wife Grace were named among 56 Zimbabweans listed in an investigation of corrupt activities that have cost the southern African country billions of US dollars over the past three decades.

The report compiled by the Anti-Corruption Trust of Southern Africa looks into allegations of corrupt activities from 1988 to 2008, and it claims Mr Mugabe was implicated in a bribery scandal linked to the Harare airport expansion deal in 1999.

Grace Mugabe was linked to dodgy diamond deals and a 1995 housing project in which she allegedly took possession of houses meant for low-earning civil servants.

Vice president Joice Mujuru, Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe governor Gideon Gono and mines minister Obert Mpofu – all Zanu-PF members – are also accused of corruption in the report.

Few of the cases were properly investigated by the police.