Plot thickens as CIO escorting Tsvangirai fingured

RIME MINISTER Morgan Tsvangirai was yesterday in a “stable condition” but was flown to Botswana for “further examinations and treatment.” He was injured during a serious accident on Friday afternoon that killed his wife of 31 years, Susan Nyaradzo.She was 50.

His party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC-T) said the accident, which left the country in shock, could have been avoided had the state provided the head of the unity government police escort.
Mrs Tsvangirai died after a USaid truck side-swipped the vehicle she and the Prime Minister were travelling in and rolled three times, 86km along the Harare-Masvingo road.

Casper Tsvangirai, the Prime Minister’s brother, said Mrs Tsvangirai was pronounced dead on arrival at Beatrice Hospital.

Addressing a press conference at Tsvangirai’s Strathaven home yesterday, Casper said Mrs Tsvangirai died from injuries sustained during the accident.

“We are sad to announce the tragic passing of Mrs Susan Nyaradzo Tsvangirai due to injuries sustained in the accident. She was pronounced dead on arrival at Beatrice Hospital,” Casper said.

Tsvangirai, who was admitted at a private clinic in Harare, was in “a stable condition”.

Those who were also in same vehicle are a security detail and a driver.

Medical sources who saw the Prime Minister yesterday told The Standard that he was in “a stable condition”.

On Friday night, said the sources, there were concerns the Prime Minister could have sustained neck injuries. His face was swollen and was bandaged.

But a series of scans suggested he was “okay”. More detailed scans were conducted yesterday but the results were not immediately available.

The same sources said that the Prime Minister’s driver, who was not immediately identified, suffered a fractured pelvis after he was thrown out of the vehicle, a Toyota Landcruiser.

The Prime Minister’s “bodyguard” survived unhurt and was the one who raised the alarm and removed the injured from the car, “with no immediate assistance from the CIO agents” in the lead and rear vehicles.

Sources close to the Prime Minister said both the driver and the security detail in the same vehicle were long-serving members of his staff.

Medical sources said Mrs Tsvangirai had been thrown 10 -15 metres out of the Landcruiser after it rolled three times. She died at Beatrice Hospital and the cause was given as “massive injuries”.

The MDC said they were investigating a suggestion that just before the accident, the lead vehicle had pulled about 100m away from the vehicle Prime Minister and his wife were in.

“What he told me was that the truck went for his car,” said Dennis Murira, director of public affairs in the prime minister’s office, according to The New York Times. “That’s how he put it.” The truck driver told the police that he had fallen asleep at the wheel, Murira said.

President Robert Mugabe and his wife paid a condolence call to Tsvangirai at the hospital on Friday evening.

According to The New York Times, Ian Makone, an official in the prime minister’s office, said he arrived at the crash scene about a half hour after the fact. He said one of the drivers in Tsvangirai’s convoy told him that an oncoming truck “had clipped the right rear fender of Morgan’s car.”

The Prime Minister, according to Murira, told him the driver of Tsvangirai’s vehicle swerved to avoid the on-rushing truck, but a trailer attached to the truck hit the Landcruiser, which rolled over three times.

Eddie Cross, the policy co-ordinator for the MDC-T, phoned Hendrick O’Neill, a party member in Beatrice. O’Neill, in turn, contacted Deon Theron, the vice-president of the Commercial Farmers’ Union, who lives near the scene.

“I was looking for someone to get to the site because I was very suspicious about the circumstances around the accident,” told The New York Times. “Morgan has been a target for some time.” Theron rushed to the scene and began to investigate.

O’Neill said: “Just as he finished the police arrived and grabbed the video camera from him, started questioning him and took him into custody.”

O’Neill said Theron called him as he was being arrested. “He told me the left front tire had burst and the vehicle was on its roof. He climbed on the vehicle. Some of the undercarriage was loose or broken. It could have been the result of the accident. That’s what he was filming when they seized him.”

Officials within the MDC alternately expressed their suspicions of foul play but resisted reaching any conclusions. “This will certainly demand an independent investigation,” Cross said.

MDC -T secretary general Tendai Biti told another press conference the accident was a “disaster” but blamed government for failing to provide police escort for Tsvangirai’s motorcade.

“I think the authorities must understand the omission: that omission could have avoided the loss of life and I hope that this omission would be rectified and that the Prime Minister would be given the protection that ought to be accorded a prime minister, namely traveling with a police escort,” Biti said.

“It’s not a big thing to ask, in fact, logic will demand that a police escort should be there.”

Biti said a police escort would have warned on coming vehicles that a VIP was approaching and this would have stopped the vehicle. However, he could not say whether the MDC suspected foul play.

“The police are making investigations, we are also carrying out our own independent investigations,” he said. “We will be making the necessary announcements in due course but as we said before there are certain things that could have been done to avoid this thing and one of them is clearly a fore running police escort.”

Police spokesperson Assistant Commissioner Wayne Bvudzijena said: “Investigations are underway as our details are on the ground. They are still gathering evidence.”

But Bvudzijena said he was not qualified to comment on whether Tsvangirai was supposed to be given police escort. “That is an area I can’t comment on.”

When President Robert Mugabe himself was prime minister, the state provided him a police escort.

Biti said Mrs Tsvangirai’s death had dealt a heavy blow to the party.

In the MDC, said Biti, she was a pillar and foundation that kept motivating Tsvangirai to fight for democracy.

Biti said she stood with the MDC leader when he was nearly thrown from the 10th floor of Chester building and when Tsvangirai was hauled before the courts on allegations of trying to assassinate Mugabe.

Tsvangirai was also arrested and heavily brutalised by police in March 2007 on his way to a prayer meeting organised by the Save Zimbabwe Campaign.

This attack drew widespread criticism from the world and spurred Tsvangirai’s political career.

“To us as an executive and as a party Mrs Susan Nyaradzo Tsvangirai was a mother to all of us. She was a pillar and foundation to our prime minister, she was a pillar and foundation to our party,” he said.

“Many of the decisions, which we took as an executive, which we took as a standing committee we knew that part of the refining wisdom came from Mrs Tsvangirai.”

The accident occurred four days before Tsvangirai was due to celebrate his 58th birthday on Tuesday (March 10).

Tsvangirai was scheduled to address an MDC rally yesterday at Murambinda Growth Point in Buhera, his home area.

Mrs Tsvangirai leaves behind a husband and six children - three boys and three girls.

MDC spokesperson and Minister of Information and Communications Technology Nelson Chamisa said Mrs Tsvangirai would be accorded send-off “befitting a hero”.

“We are making necessary arrangements and we are also waiting for the other family members, in particular the children, hoping that we will have a heroic send off for our mother of the nation here in Harare as well as in Buhera,” said Chamisa.

Mourners are gathered at number 2 Lyndhurst Close, Strathaven in Harare.