Tsvangirai not free to receive visitors

HARARE (Global Post) - The Prime Minister of Zimbabwe is unable to receive
visitors because President Robert Mugabe's security officers bar their entry
to his office building.

This recent incident illustrates the sort of obstacles Morgan Tsvangirai
faces daily.

Senior members of a leading civic organization, the National Constitutional
Assembly (NCA), were blocked from meeting Prime Minister Tsvangirai by
Mugabe's security agents. The president and prime minister share offices in
the same building. The NCA delegation had been due to discuss issues of
constitutional reform with Tsvangirai, who is one of three principal party
leaders heading the government of national unity.

Only the intervention of Deputy Prime Minister Thokozani Khupe eventually
secured the group's entry.

Last week a vehicle in Tsvangirai's convoy was denied entry to Mugabe's
official residence, where a state dinner was being held for a visiting North
Korean delegation. Tsvangirai drove off saying he had better things to do
after guards at State House refused to admit a vehicle in his convoy.

Of course, the entire visit of the North Koreans was controversial.
Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) enjoys widespread support
in southern Zimbabwe, known as Matabeleland, where Mugabe unleashed the
North Korean-trained Fifth Brigade in a campaign of political retribution in
which an estimated 10 000 to 20 000 people were killed in the mid-1980s.

To welcome the North Koreans last week Mugabe praised their support for
Zimbabwe and congratulated them on their rocket launch that caused
international tension earlier this year.

Mugabe's speech was, by any standard, provocative and designed to show
Tsvangirai who is boss. Mugabe was, at the same time, rebuking the MDC's
international allies, who are looking to Tsvangirai to restore productive
relations with Zimbabwe.

These incidents may be dismissed as trivial, but they are examples of how
Robert Mugabe is letting everyone know that he is still running the show in
Zimbabwe. It is not just in petty security access situations. Mugabe is also
calling the shots to jail his critics for lengthy periods on flimsy charges.
He is also continuing to harass the small but lively independent press.

From the very start of the power-sharing government, which brought
Tsvangirai and his MDC party into a coalition government, critics warned
that Mugabe would not cooperate and would tarnish Tsvangirai's reputation by
continuing repressive actions. That is exactly what is happening, especially
regarding the rule of law and the press. Mugabe is using his control of the
judiciary to jail government critics on spurious charges and to press
similarly weak charges against the press.

Mugabe is demonstrating just how obstructive he can be by refusing to remove
the loyalist Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono and the equally dedicated
Attorney General Johannes Tomana. Those officials protected by him are in no
doubt about whose orders they must follow.

Responding to questions in Parliament last week, the co-minister of Home
Affairs Giles Mutsekwa revealed that Tomana, not the police, ordered the
arrests of two journalists from an independent newspaper. The newspaper had
published the names of police and intelligence officers responsible for the
abduction and torture of opposition activists last year. The names appeared
in court papers and were therefore matters of public record - so there
should be no problem in printing them in a newspaper.

Tomana's office also has refused to grant bail to detainees who have been
ordered free by the courts. In nearly every case involving charges against
government critics, the state has challenged court rulings to keep people
imprisoned for another week, or more, while the government's appeal to their
release is heard. A judge only last week sharply criticized the state for
opposing bail in the case of three activists when its legal grounds for
doing so were weak.

Meanwhile, media defense organizations have slammed the recent arrest of
journalists.

"Zimbabwean journalists continue to be the victims of police brutality and
judicial abuses," said Reporters Without Borders. "By arresting journalists
arbitrarily and then conditioning their release on the payment of bail, the
police and courts are subjecting the media to a systematic extortion racket.
We again appeal to the authorities to stop these practices."

Mugabe's grip on the levers of power has placed the MDC in an invidious
position. In a bid to placate the prickly Mugabe, Tsvangirai has campaigned
for the West to lift sanctions. Although Tsvangirai has also called for an
end to criticism of Mugabe, he has been forthright as to where Zimbabwe's
problems lie.

"The continued violations of the rule of law and the Global Political
Agreement (which created the power-sharing government) prevent the inflows
of development aid, obstructing the legislative agenda, and risk keeping
Zimbabwe mired in poverty," he said recently. "What continues to plague
Zimbabwe can best be described as a reluctance to accept the reality of the
changes taking place within the country."

Western donors have made it clear that before they untie their purse strings
the new government must end arbitrary arrests and allow a free media.

At a recent conference call to chart a path to media reform, government
publicists called for sanctions to be lifted, but they made no mention of
the need to stop state arrests of independent journalists, to allow the
return of exiled journalists, or to end state controls over the media.

The MDC, frustrated by Mugabe's persistent stonewalling, has sought the
intervention of the regional organization, the Southern African Development
Community (SADC), which is the guarantor of the Zimbabwe settlement.

Tsvangirai, in a remarkable display of self-criticism, said over the weekend
he "totally agreed with the decision because they (his party) feel we have
been dragging our feet in solving the outstanding issues."

Tsvangirai specifically mentioned the "unexplained arrests."

The MDC's move to bring SADC back into the fray is an admission of the
failure to gain cooperation with Mugabe and his party, Zanu-PF.

Meanwhile, civil society and much of the independent media will be biting
its collective tongue. It is tempting, but would not be helpful, to say,
"Told you so."