Post-election political violence in Zimbabwe has diminished in some parts of the country from the levels seen in May and June, nongovernmental and political sources said, but others noted that attacks on members of the opposition continue at a high rate in certain districts.
Violence remains a common occurrence in Shamva North constituency of Mashonaland Central
province, and parts of Mashonaland East province continue to see violence though most of the "torture bases" set up by ruling party militia are said to have been dismantled.
In Manicaland, reports of violence continued to emerge from Buhera and Makoni South, but sources familiar with the area said conditions were improving elsewhere.
Officials of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change declined to comment as to any decline in violence, cessation of which is an MDC precondition for entering into substantive discussions with the ruling ZANU-PF party on sharing power.
Political violence sprang up after the March 29 general and presidential elections in which the MDC claimed a majority in the lower house of parliament and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai outpolled incumbent President Robert Mugabe. Attacks on rural communities that voted for the opposition gave way to more targeted assaults on opposition supporters and officials, more than 100 of whom the MDC says have been killed since March 29.
Opposition lawyer Tapera Sengweni of Gokwe, Midlands province, who this week visited some opposition victims of violence who have been denied treatment in a local hospital, told VOA reporter Jonga Kandemiiri that Gokwe-Kabuyuni remains a troubled area.
