Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe’s long-ruling ZANU-PF party and the Movement for Democratic Change formation of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai are blaming each other for the recent upsurge in political violence in the country.
Mr. Tsvangirai’s MDC, backed by civil society groups, said ZANU-PF supporters including youth militia and liberation war veterans are the main perpetrators. ZANU-PF said the MDC is stage-managing human rights violations to gain political mileage.
Police Commissioner-General Augustine Chihuri on Thursday blamed the Tsvangirai-led MDC for the violence, telling Parliament that its supporters should have been summoned by a Senate committee on peace, defense and security, instead of him.
To examine the roots of the latest spate of political violence in Zimbabwe, reporter Patience Rusere turned to Gabriel Chaibva, former spokesman of the smaller MDC formation now led by Welshman Ncube, and political analyst Promise Mkhwanazi
Mkhwanazi dismissed Chihuri assertions in Parliament that the MDC is responsible for most of the violence currently tightening its grip on Zimbabwe. Chaibva said that as a former member of the MDC he could attest to the party's propensity for violence.
