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Africa Subsaharan

Zim opposition reports 4 deaths ahead of vote

2008-06-20

Zimbabwe's opposition party said Thursday that it was facing escalating violence as it tries to campaign in the last days before a presidential runoff pitting its leader against longtime President Robert Mugabe.

In recent weeks, party activists have been burned alive or have turned up dead after being spirited away in trucks, the Movement for Democratic Change said. Their rallies have been banned and police have blocked campaign stops. The violence, restrictions on opposition campaigning and the arrest of a top opposition leader have raised concerns that the June 27 elections will not be free and fair, leading some in the region to wonder whether the vote should be scrapped in favor of a power-sharing arrangement.

Opposition presidential candidate Morgan Tsvangirai's party says more than 60 of its activists have been killed in recent weeks.

Independent human rights activists have implicated police, soldiers and Mugabe party militants in the violence. Amnesty International said Thursday that 12 bodies had been found across the country and that most of the victims showed signs of torture. The London-based rights group said the victims appeared to have been abducted by supporters of Mugabe's Zanu-PF party.

One of the worst single attacks came Wednesday, when the opposition said four activists were abducted in Chitungwiza, about 15 miles south of the capital, and assaulted with iron bars, clubs and guns, opposition spokesman Nelson Chamisa said. The victims were forced onto trucks and taken away by militias chanting slogans of Mugabe's party, witnesses said. The bodies were found early Thursday, Chamisa said.

In a separate incident, the homes of three Chitungwiza opposition councilmen and their families were firebombed Wednesday night, but everyone escaped uninjured, Chamisa said. Attempts to reach police for confirmation of the firebombing were not immediately successful.