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ZIMBABWE - The Government in Zimbabwe has stepped up its campaign of violence and intimidation, murdering a local journalist suspected of links to the opposition.
Edward Chikombo, a part-time cameraman for the state broadcaster ZBC, was abducted from his home in the Glenview township outside Harare last week. His body was found at the weekend near the village of Darwendale, 80km west of the capital, the Independent has learned.
There are concerns in Harare that the killing may be linked to the smuggling out of the country of controversial television pictures of the badly injured opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai after his beating at the hands of police on March 11.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a former colleague of Chikombo said: "It's not clear whether the murder was a message to the media or a political killing."
The footage of Tsvangirai leaving a Harare courthouse with a suspected fractured skull, and then lying in a hospital bed, provoked a storm of international criticism of Robert Mugabe's regime.
Journalists for the state broadcaster routinely film news as it happens in the country but cannot use the footage in heavily censored bulletins which are used for ruling party propaganda. Some pictures do get out of the country, and in the past staff at ZBC have been sacked or harassed under suspicion of selling it to foreign broadcasters.
The Government has banned both the BBC and CNN from operating inside the country and made it a criminal offence with a two-year sentence for unaccredited journalists to report from Zimbabwe. Since taking power in 1980, Mugabe has nationalised all media outlets in the country with the recent closure of the Daily News removing the last independent voice. Local journalists are forced to work undercover for international outlets.
Accreditation papers are routinely refused to organisations seen as hostile to the Mugabe Government.
Witnesses saw a group of unidentified armed men abduct Chikombo last Thursday. His captors drove a silver, twin cab pickup of the same manufacture that has been seen in numerous similar abductions during a three-week terror campaign targeting opponents of the Government.
The pattern of abductions and punishment beatings has become a terrifying nightly ritual in Zimbabwe, where scores of opposition activists and their relatives have been hospitalised by gangs using unmarked cars and police-issue weapons.
The Government has refused to confirm or deny its involvement in these "hit squads" but Mugabe has spoken of the police's right to "bash" the opposition and instead attacked what he says are "terrorist acts" by MDC members.
Another local journalist, Gift Phiri, a senior reporter for the exile newspaper the Zimbabwean, was detained and beaten by police on Sunday. Phiri was picked up on Sunday afternoon near his home in Sunningdale, in Harare.
His lawyer, Rangu Nyamurundira, said his client had been badly beaten while in custody. "When I saw him, Gift could not sit down as he had been very badly beaten on his back and his buttocks. He told me four policemen, including the chief superintendent, had tortured him for hours."
A British journalist working for Time magazine, Alex Perry, has left Zimbabwe after his arrest and subsequent release after apparently entering the country without accreditation.
Government threat puts Zimbabweans off strike
A two-day national strike got off to a difficult start in Zimbabwe yesterday where near-total unemployment and a barrage of Government threats limited the impact of the stay-away.
With nine out of 10 Zimbabweans unemployed, many workers said they feared losing their jobs if they did not report for work.
Employers who have seen President Robert Mugabe ignore international outrage and encourage the police to bash opposition leaders and anyone opposing his rule were also too afraid to heed the call for a strike.
With inflation at 1700 per cent and shortages of most basic commodities, workers were not eager to lose two days' wages as well.
Meanwhile, South African President Thabo Mbeki has kick-started his mediation effort in Zimbabwe by meeting the heads of the two main factions of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).
Mbeki was mandated by African leaders last week to mediate between Mugabe and the opposition and find a solution to the crisis.
- INDEPENDENT
