Public domain MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai image:41153:3::0

The Burma-ization of Zimbabwe is now only a matter of time. And that time could come as soon as this Friday. That's when the runoff election to determine who will run unfortunate Zimbabwe is scheduled. Like the Burmese generals who insisted on holding a referendum days after a typhoon devastated their country, Mugabe says there will be en election, even if he has to do the whole thing himself.

Sunday, Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), leader Morgan Tsvangirai called a press conference in his home in Harare's central suburbs and announced that his party was pulling out of the presidential run-off scheduled for Friday.

He said the incidents of violence and murder against his supporters were so widespread, that he had to do something. Tsvangirai said,"It would be irresponsible to ask people to vote when voting could cost them their lives."

In the week preceding this announcement, the city had become numbed by the ongoing violence and ruling party Zanu-PF's brand of aggressive campaigning.

Whole constituencies comfortably won in the 29 March poll were being overrun by Zanu-PF's youth militias. Mob rule reigned in the townships. Those affiliated with the opposition - elected MPs, councillors, organising secretaries, activists - were being systematically targeted.

Sources inside estimate the body count at between 70 and 85 and it's feared this will become much higher as Mugabe's thugs go about consolidating their gains. Individuals were brazenly dragged from their homes in broad daylight and murdered by Mugabe's youth gangs. In order to ram home the message, this was usually done in front of their families and neighbours.

No one was surprised Sunday when, at the government-approved opposition rally, hundreds of Zanu-PF youth militia showed up at the appointed location to pre-empt the MDC demo. Backing them up and already in occupation of part of the allocated area, police riot squads in full fighting gear. The cancellation of the rally did nothing to pacify the Zanu-PF gangs. It seemed to inflame them and they turned their fury on anyone in the centre of the city. Beneath a pall of tear gas, the thugs beat people, stoned cars and forced property, seemingly allowed free rein with police by standing for almost an hour

Mr Tsvangirai listed many reasons for his decision, not the least being that his campaign has been frustrated at every turn, with zero access to the state broadcaster, his only means to speak to the country.

Here's where the generals and their denial of media access to opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi come to mind. It's almost as if the old tyrant has adopted the generals of Burma as mentors. Like them, he's managed to make Zimbabwe a pariah nation while showing zero regard for international opinion. including that of the African Union and UN.

Mr Tsvangirai said three-quarters of the country is no longer accessible to its election agents and campaigners, "war veterans" having set up bases and roadblocks which make it impossible for anyone from the opposition to move freely and 200,000 people displaced amid appalling levels of violence.

The decision has shocked and saddened many MDC supporters but it's slowly sinking in that it was the right call. Although if the violence continues despite the MDC having conceded the election, it will be difficult for Tsvangirai to control his militants.

The Burma parallel surfaced about a decade ago, when it became obvious government mismanagement had Zimbabwe going from being a food producer to a food importer. Mugabe's reaction was to Implement the Land Reform Act, ratcheting up the speed and level of violence with which white owned farms were occupied and their owners drive off or killed.

Compensation was just another word for nothing left to lose.

The disaster really took hold during the "redistribution" phase, with the best bits going to Zanu supporters, irrespective of their farming skills As many were earmarked for veterans of the civil war, large prosperous operations were turned over to folk whose only farming experience was burning and looting them.

In this phase, the country went from food importer to food beggar and inflation was in the thousands of percent. Mugabe showed his true colour is 2004 when, as the country faced its third straight year of crop failures amid agricultural mayhem, a coalition of white farmers offered to manage the seized properties until they could train black Zimbabweans to properly take over.

Mugabe branded this a plot to retake their property by the white elite, backed by Britain and the US, and briefly imprisoned the spokesmen.

As in Burma, at this point we're looking at a leader complicit in the impoverishment of his own people as a means of asserting control. Another way of doing that is to nullify the opposition and the parallels are getting scary. When the generals dared call an election and had their asses handed to them by Aung San Suu Kyi's democratic party, they announced the elections had been rigged, arrested the top rank of the party and placed Kyi under house arrest, where she still remains.

Tsvangirai's situation could get as dire very soon. There are doubts the government would allow him to leave at this point, and the five times he's been arrested before signals his lot isn't about to get any easier.

At press time, unconfirmed reports say Tsvangirai has already gone into hiding and Mugabe is spinning that by saying Tsvangirai's decision not to participate in the election, he's the one who is denying Zimbabweans their democratic rights. In an ominous sign, there has been no statement from the group of foreign observers in Zimbabwe to report on the fairness of the election.

Nor has the African Union, including South Africa's Mbeki, the closest thing Mugabe has to a friend, shown any inclination to put the heat on Mugabe.

It seems that strictly as a side effect, the crisis in Zimbabwe is forcing the African Union to check itself out in that process may lie the key to turning off Mugabe.


- Lenny Stoute