and sidelined those youths who had supposedly not campaigned for him. Such acts grant and
perpetuate the same misguided sense of ‘political privilege’ to land which is denied others.
Yet another disturbing incident in August was the intimidation of and threats against community
members in Marondera in order to coerce them into voting for the Zanu PF candidate for the byelection scheduled for September, Lawrence Katsiru. Katsiru allegedly sent youths and other party
members to check on numbers of who had registered to vote. Katsiru vowed to ‘deal’ with those who
would not support his bid for office.
A high number of incidences in August centred around Heroes’ Day celebrations where considerable
conflict came about in the collections of co-erced cash contributions towards the festivities. Over the
years, some members of the opposition parties have become reluctant to partake in the celebrations of
Heroes’ Day and other related holidays on the grounds that the ruling party has taken “ownership” of
the days making them partisan instead of national for all. Against that background, the forced
contributions and the harassment and bias that comes with the exercise against perceived “enemies of
the state” creates bad blood and altercations amongst parties. In a couple of reported instances some
people who had contributed in cash, were forced out of the celebrations on political grounds and when
they claimed their monies back, they were threatened with unspecified action.
By and large, Zanu PF acts of harassment, discrimination and other types of violations continue to be
perpetrated at three distinct “enemies”. These are the white farmers, MDC-T, MDC-N and since last
year those perceived to be ‘gamatox’1. Incidences throughout the month confirmed hostile sentiments
towards
the
groups
of
enemies.
Figure 2: Zanu PF ANIMOSITY TARGETS 2
Of particular interest in the wave of intra-party violence is the targeting of former Zanu PF
political godfather for the Manicaland province, Didymus Mutasa, who having been a
perpetrator in several instances of violence against political opponents during his heyday
before being expelled from the ruling party, has of late been finding himself on the receiving
end of intolerance. This report documents an incident where a school under his wing was
1
Gamatox refers to Zanu PF members aligned to ousted former vice president Joice Mujuru.
Zanu PF has historically always targeted the opposition MDC and white farmers, and of late its own members
suspected of being ‘gamatox’ have been open to discriminative attacks.
3
7