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Tsvangirai: Zimbabwe at ‘tipping point’
LONDON — Zimbabwe is facing a critical moment that could see the end of the dictatorship of President Robert Mugabe, the leader of the country’s main opposition said Sunday.
Speaking by telephone from Harare, Morgan Tsvangirai said he was recovering from injuries allegedly inflicted by police during a March 11 protest gathering. Photographs of his battered face were printed in newspapers around the world, drawing more attention to the situation in the southern African country.
“Things are bad,” Tsvangirai told the British Broadcasting Corp.’s Sunday AM program, “but I think that this crisis has reached a tipping point, and we could see the beginning of the end of this dictatorship in whatever form.”
Tsvangirai, head of the Movement for Democratic Change, was among scores of activists injured as police cracked down on an opposition meeting in the Harare township of Highfield. One activist was shot and killed. Zimbabwean police used tear gas, water cannons and live ammunition and beat activists during and after arrests, according to opposition members.
Tsvangirai’s supporters have vowed to drive Mugabe from office with a campaign of civil disobedience.
Mugabe’s critics at home and abroad accuse him of repression and corruption and blame him for acute food shortages and the world’s highest rate of inflation. The recent violence heightened growing tensions in urban strongholds of the opposition, and renewed questions about how long the 83-year-old can maintain his tight grip on power.
Tsvangirai also criticized South Africa for its role in the crisis. Calling the country a “critical player,” he said South Africa “could have been more strong,” and urged continued pressure from both the African Union and the international community, as well as individual nations such as the United States.
South African President Thabo Mbeki has said quiet diplomacy is preferable to public condemnation, but Western governments have condemned the violence. The U.S. is threatening to strengthen sanctions, and last month the European Union renewed targeted sanctions, including asset freezes and a travel ban on Mugabe and more than 100 of his top associates.
U.N. condemns killing of Somali activist
KISMAYO, Somalia — Human rights activists are increasingly the targets of attacks in Somalia, a U.N. official said last Friday, condemning last week’s killing of a leading campaigner.
Isse Abdi Isse, formerly the mayor of Somalia’s third largest city, Kismayo, was shot to death by two men last Wednesday while he sipped tea near a hotel where he was staying in Mogadishu.
Isse, 46, was the chairman and founder of the Kasima Peace and Development Organization, a rights group based in his southern port city.
“Isse championed human rights causes in the region for many years and his death is undoubtedly a loss to all Somalis who at this time are seeking peace and reconciliation,” said Eric Laroche, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Somalia.
Insecurity in Somalia has been growing since the transitional government backed by Ethiopian forces drove out a rival Islamic movement late last year.
“The situation of human rights violations in Somalia is worsening,” added Ahmed Kiimiko, chairman of the Somali Human Rights Defenders Network. “Killings, robbery, kidnapping, the creation of anarchy, rapes and subjugation of personal rights have increased recently.”
Former trooper with ties to KKK appealing firing
OMAHA, Neb. — A former state trooper fired for joining a group affiliated with the Ku Klux Klan appealed his dismissal to the Nebraska Court of Appeals last Friday.
The appeal for Robert Henderson said District Court Judge Jeffre Cheuvront of Lancaster County would not have violated public policy by upholding an arbitrator’s ruling that Henderson should not have been fired.
“The overwhelming evidence indicates appellant Henderson never treated anyone differently based on race, nor did he ever utter a disparaging word about minority individuals,” Henderson’s attorney Vincent Valentino wrote in the appeal brief.
“In short, appellant Henderson was fired for exercising his constitutional and statutory rights to free speech and free political affiliation, and not for violating clear and explicit Nebraska public policy.”
Henderson, 49, was dismissed last March after patrol officials discovered he had joined a racist group and posted messages on its Web site.
An arbitrator cited a lack of evidence that Henderson treated people differently because of their race while working as a trooper.
The state attorney general’s office appealed that decision. In December Cheuvront ruled for the state, saying Henderson violated the state’s public policy against discrimination.
Valentino said then that Cheuvront’s ruling did not take the arbitrator’s reasoning into account.
Arbitrator Paul J. Caffera ruled in August that Henderson was entitled to his First Amendment rights of free speech and that the state violated the state troopers’ contract when it fired Henderson “because of his association with the Knights Party ... and the Ku Klux Klan.”
Henderson told an investigator he joined the Knights Party in June 2004 to vent his frustrations about his separation with his wife. She left him for a Hispanic man.
Valentino has said the state, instead of firing Henderson, should have found another position for him within the patrol besides a trooper. Henderson’s family includes black and Hispanic members, which Valentino pointed out when arguing that his client was not racist.
(Associated Press)
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