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HARARE-Pressure mounted on Zimbabwe Thursday to admit foreign observers to oversee a presidential election run-off amid fresh claims that pro-government militias were deliberately instilling terror.The opposition said 30 supporters had now been killed and a union chief said 40,000 farmworkers and their dependents had been made homeless, although authorities played down the levels of violence.Six days since results from an inconclusive March 29 poll were announced, there was still no word on when a second round would take place nor whether the opposition Movement for Democratic Change(MDC)would participate. Its leader Morgan Tsvangirai has argued that President Robert Mugabe, who lost the first round but not by a sufficient margin for the MDC to avoid a run-off, is trying to spread fear to cling on to power.In its latest death toll, the MDC said it now had information 30 supporters had been killed by Mugabe supporters in attacks in rural areas. "What is worrying is that each day comes with gory stories of how human beings are being treated," said spokesman Nelson Chamisa."This is why we are appealing on bended knees to the international community to assist in ending the carnage."The leader of a Zimbabwe farmworkers' union told a press conference in South Africa that 40,000 people had been driven off their land since March 29 either as a result of direct attacks by militias or through fear."They have been accused of voting for the opposition. Most of them are either on the roadside or sheltering at some farms," said Gertrude Hambira, general secretary of the General Agriculture and Plantation Workers Union of Zimbabwe.Hambira said militias were targeting rural areas, traditional strongholds for Mugabe where he did worse than expected on polling day. International disquiet, however, is growing, with UN chief Ban Ki-moon calling for international observers to oversee the run-off and the White House pressuring Mugabe and his supporters to put an end to the violence.In a statement, Ban said "future stages of the electoral process must be conducted in a peaceful, credible and transparent manner in the presence of international observers" while also voicing concern about violence.US national security council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said Mugabe and his supporters needed "to refrain from (violence and intimidation) against those who are supporting the opposition."Gordon Brown, prime minister of former colonial power Britain, echoed the calls for overseas scrutiny.Further evidence of restrictions placed on the media also surfaced on Thursday with news of the detention of a local newspaper editor and a photographer from news agency Reuters.The photographer, Zimbabwean national Howard Burditt, had been arrested on Monday, charged with using a satellite phone to file pictures, but was released on bail, the news agency said later on Thursday.The editor, of Zimbabwean independent weekly newspaper The Standard, was arrested Thursday for publishing an opinion piece written by an opposition leader, his colleagues said.In comments in the state-run Herald newspaper on Thursday, police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena cast doubt on the MDC's claims about the numbers of dead, saying "three of the cases had no basis whatsoever while others were under investigation."The run-off should in theory take place on May 24, but the electoral commission has indicated the deadline will be missed and the head of a South African observer mission has said the country is too violent to hold an election.The MDC says figures released last Friday were doctored to save Mugabe's skin. The 84-year-old, Africa's oldest leader, has been in power since independence from Britain in 1980.Once seen as a post-colonial success story, Zimbabwe has been in economic meltdown since 2000 when Mugabe embarked on a programme of land reforms which saw thousands of white-owned farms expropriated.Inflation now stands at over 165,000 percent and unemployment is above 80 percent, while around a third of the 13 million population has left the country.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080508/ts_afp/zimbabwevote_080508193210;_ylt=AlKs6O4QV4bZQ.u2MXYowH6FOrgF
As in the days of Noah...
