Officials begin recounting ballots in Zimbabwe

[April 19, 2008]  HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) -- Officials began recounting ballots for a couple dozen legislative seats Saturday, an exercise that could overturn the opposition's landmark victory.

Meanwhile, an independent human rights monitor charged that the government has begun a campaign of torture and harassment against those who voted for the opposition, while the country continues to await the results of presidential election.

The ruling party is challenging the count in 23 parliamentary races, most won by the opposition, including in President Robert Mugabe's home district of Zvimba. The counting began after an opposition attempt to stop it was blocked in court Friday. The court is stacked with Mugabe loyalists.

The opposition has also gone to court to try to force the release of results from the presidential vote. Three weeks after the March 29 elections, which Mugabe is widely believed to have lost, they have not yet been published.

Results from legislative races held alongside the presidential votes gave control of the parliament to the opposition for the first time.

In Zvimba, officials excluded reporters as the count began in the presence of officials from the ruling and opposition parties as well as local observers.

Reporters saw no international observers present, though the state-controlled Herald newspaper quoted officials of the Southern African Development Community as saying it had sent 50 monitors.

In one contested constituency, The Herald reported a failed petrol bomb attack on offices where ballot boxes were stored early Friday morning. The newspaper quoted police as saying three attackers threw a homemade bomb at the Gutu district administration office, but that it did not explode. It said the attackers drove away when challenged by a police officer.

The state-owned Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corp. reported the re-count would take as many as three days.

Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai claims he won the election outright and has accused Mugabe of planning to hold onto power simply by refusing to release the election results

The opposition Movement for Democratic Change has said that the delays have provided the ruling party a chance to brutalize and intimidate voters to suppress political dissent while it attempts to engineer a runoff vote.

The independent Zimbabwe Doctors for Human Rights says at least 200 people have been treated for severe injuries since the election. The group was investigating at least two reported but unconfirmed deaths.

New York-based Human Rights Watch charged in a report released Saturday that "torture and violence are surging in Zimbabwe."

It said the ruling party was setting up "torture camps to systematically target, beat, and torture people suspected of having voted for the (opposition) MDC in last months elections."

But Mugabe accused others of plotting violence, and signaled there could be more.

"We know some people are planning that there will be places where there will be violence, with people burning shops and cars," he said. "Those who are planning this, please stop it immediately, otherwise you are going to be in serious trouble with us."

On Friday, in a speech to mark the country's 28th Independence Day celebrations, Mugabe placed the blame for Zimbabwe's woes on whites and former colonial ruler Britain.

Mguabe's first major speech since the election was an attempt to convince Zimbabweans that the cause of their political and economic troubles lies abroad.

Whites "want the people to starve so they think the government is wrong and they should remove it," Mugabe said.

The opposition and independent observers blame Mugabe's policies for the collapse of an economy that was once a regional breadbasket. The often-violent seizures of white-owned commercial farms that began on Mugabe's orders in 2000 put land in the hands of his cronies instead of productive farmers.

The farm invasions were a dramatic example of Mugabe's familiar tactic of demonizing whites. His anti-white rhetoric has struck a chord in a country that suffered under white minority rule and fought a seven-year war that helped bring independence in 1980.

But after repeated attacks on whites and the near collapse of the economy, the white community's size and power - and perhaps the effectiveness of scapegoating it - have dwindled.

[Associated Press; By ANGUS SHAW]

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