The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission has finally released results from the March 29th presidential election–supposedly showing that Morgan Tsvangirai won more votes than Robert Mugabe, but did not clear the 50% mark needed to avoid a runoff.   Given the massive delay, post-election violence, and the removal of votes to an undisclosed military location, many observers have termed the results suspect.  The Zimbabwe Election Support Network has stated that it cannot substantiate the official figures under these circumstances.

The MDC is still considering whether or not it will participate in the runoff vote, given its earlier claims of victory in the election and the government’s refusal to clarify the date of the runoff–which is legally supposed to occur 21 days after the original results are announced, but which may be postponed indefinitely.  Meanwhile, reports of violence perpetrated by ZANU-PF supporters and security forces continue to stream out of the country.

The United Nations has started to pay more attention to the situation in Zimbabwe–but the results have been mixed. Louise Arbour, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, issued a strong statement of concern about the post-election crisis, saying:

I am particularly concerned about reports of threats, intimidation, abuse and violence directed against NGOs, election monitors, human rights defenders and other representatives of civil society. The information I have received suggests an emerging pattern of political violence inflicted mainly, but not exclusively, on rural supporters of the opposition MDC party. However, there are also some reports of MDC supporters resorting to violence and intimidation.

A group of six Special Rappoteurs on human rights topics also issued their own statement echoing Arbour’s concerns.

Meanwhile, the UN Security Council decided to hear a briefing on the situation in Zimbabwe–South Africa, which currently holds the presidency of the Council, blocked calls for the UN to send a special envoy to Zimbabwe to investigate, and Russia and China backed up the South African position.

African governments and civil society movements are growing increasingly critical of the Mugabe regime’s behavior, as the delay of the election results continues and reports of reprisal attacks and arrests increase by the day. 

The goverment of Sierra Leone released a statement reading, in part:

In the interest of democracy, and for the welfare of the suffering people of Zimbabwe, we are calling on President Robert Mugabe and all stakeholders, particularly the electoral commission, to accelerate the completion of the electoral process by declaring the outcome of the elections.

We therefore join the clarion call from all democratic nations, institutions, and individuals in asking the Zimbabwean authorities to listen to the voice of the people, release the results without further delay and with utmost transparency.

Kenyan organizations including Kenyans for Peace, Truth and Justice, and the National Civil Society Congress are holding a Day of Action for Zimbabwe tomorrow, and have joined the call for a weapons ban.

West African civil society groups have banded together to create “West African Voices for Zimbabwe” and will engage in a peaceful protest march in Abuja on Wednesday, as well as other advocacy efforts.

The solidarity movement throughout southern Africa continues to grow, fueled by widespread civil society and trade union opposition to allowing a Chinese arms shipment to reach the country.  Angola has allowed the ship to dock but maintains that it will not be permitted to unload its cargo.  Zimbabweans in exile led protests outside the Chinese embassy in South Africa in response to the shipment.

The recount of votes in 23 parliamentary consitutencies disputed by ZANU-PF indicates that the opposition won enough seats to take control of the House of Assembly.  In the meantime, the two factions of the Movement for Democratic Change, led by Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara, have reunited and declared an MDC majority in parliament based on the election results.

The Zimbabwean Electoral Commission has still not released the results of the presidential poll, four weeks after the election.  The government has indicated that the results should be released early this week, but the opposition and civil society groups maintain that the lengthy delay–and the removal of the ballots to an undisclosed location by military vehicles–may invalidate any results due the likelihood of tampering.

More than two hundred heavily-armed riot police raided the Movement for Democratic Change’s Harare headquarters–where hundreds of opposition supporters had taken refuge after fleeing election reprisal violence.   They arrested more than 100 people (possibly as many as 300), some of whom had already sustained injuries from attacks by ZANU-PF supporters.  Those arrested were forced into police vans and are being detained.  The police also seized computers and equipment used by the party in its election command center.

Another raid occurred at the headquarters of the Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN), the coalition of civil society organizations that ran a parallel vote tabulation process which showed an opposition victory.

The An Yue Jiang is returning to China with its shipment of weapons undelivered.  The massive public outcry over the arms shipment, which South African dockyard workers refused to unload and other African nations refused to receive, has prevented the Mugabe regime from getting three million rounds of assault rifle ammunition, 3,000 mortar rounds and 1,500 rocket-propelled grenades.  In the aftermath of the controversy over the ship, the movement for a global arms embargo on Zimbabwe is gaining steam.   Archbishop Desmond Tutu spoke out in favor of ban on weapons sales today:

I join the worldwide calls to stop the supply of weapons to the country–by land, sea or air–until the political crisis is resolved. It is obvious that supplying large quantities of arms at this stage would risk escalating the violence, perhaps resulting in the large-scale loss of life. We should be proud of the African Trade Unions and governments who refused to let the most recent Chinese shipment off-load in their ports but China must now agree not to try and send these arms by air instead.

I join the South African church leaders in urging all governments to immediately start work at the UN level to agree a binding UN arms embargo as quickly as possible. In the meantime I hope that every country will agree to a moratorium on the supply of any arms to the country.

If violence flares further in Zimbabwe, those supplying the weapons will be left with blood on their hands. It is up to every country in the region and beyond to take a stand.

The European Union is also considering an embargo on weapons sales to China as long as the Chinese government is suppling arms to armed forces and groups in Africa that are responsible for human rights violations.

Avaaz.org has launched a second petition on Zimbabwe, this time to stop the delivery of the arms shipment on board the Chinese cargo ship An Yue Jiang and oppose any further deliveries of weapons to Zimbabwe until the crisis is resolved.  Go here to join the almost 30,000 people who’ve signed so far on the first day.

The ship is playing “cat and mouse” with its trackers, apparently still looking for a port to unload its cargo of weapons for Zimbabwe–but recent reports suggest that it may be recalled to China after an international outcry.  Mozambique and Angola have refused to let the ship enter their ports, and trade unions throughout the region have vowed to boycott the shipment, refusing to either unload the weapons or help transport them to Zimbabwe.

Meanwhile, pressure for an international arms embargo against Zimbabwe is growing.

Representatives from more than 200 African civil society organizations met in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania on Monday to discuss the crisis in Zimbabwe.   The emergency summit, organized by the East African Law Society, the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA) and the Open Society Initiative for East Africa (OSIEA), brought together human rights activists, lawyers, trade unionists, church leaders, and other representatives to formulate a people’s call to action.  The communique that resulted from the discussions calls on African governments to condemn the actions of the Mugabe regime, and appeals to the African Union–currently headed by Tanzanian president Jakaya Kikwete–to intervene. Don Deya, director of the East Africa Law Society, compared the current response to Zimbabwe’s plight with the AU’s role during the Kenya crisis:

“When election fraud occurred in Kenya, the AU acted swiftly and effectively to mediate a settlement. We have the same situation in Zimbabwe. Why is the AU silent? A brutal crackdown is underway in Zimbabwe to suppress and silence pro-democracy voices. The AU must speak out now!”

The summit’s participants also criticized the role played by SADC-appointed mediator President Thabo Mbeki in the crisis, and called on the African Union to revoke SADC’s mandate to deal with the crisis and replace Mbeki with a neutral panel of African mediators. 

As the political and economic situation in Zimbabwe continues to deteriorate, the regime is brutalizing more civilians every day. Human Rights Watch is reporting evidence that ZANU-PF, the security forces, and their militias are setting up “torture camps” as part of Operation Makavhoterapapi, the systematic campaign of reprisals against those who supported the MDC in the March 29th elections. According to the press release,

Victims and eyewitnesses told Human Rights Watch that ZANU-PF has set up detention centers in the opposition constituencies of Mutoko North, Mutoko South, Mudzi (all in the province of Mashonaland East), and in Bikita West (in the province of Masvingo) to round up and instill fear in suspected political opponents.

During the day, ZANU-PF and their allies (so-called “war veterans,” youth militias and some armed men in military uniform) gather at these camps to decide on their targets, generally those known or thought to support the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). According to witnesses, the targets are then rounded up and brought to the camps at night, where they are beaten for hours with thick wooden sticks and army batons. Human Rights Watch has interviewed more than 30 people in the last two days who have sustained serious injuries, including broken limbs, as a result of these beatings.

The violence and instability are prompting an ever-increasing number of refugees to flood across Zimbabwe’s borders in search of refuge. According to a report in today’s New York Times, more than a thousand people cross the border to South Africa every day, many of them after witnessing election-related violence. One escapee told reporters that

opposition supporters in her village in central Zimbabwe became easy targets because they had danced and sung in the streets after early results were tacked up on polling station doors. When the final results did not come, they went into hiding. But the thugs found them anyway, she said.

Estimates of the number of Zimbabweans living in exile in South Africa range between 2 and 4 million. Many of them face harrassment, violence, and poverty as undocumented refugees.

The Chinese cargo ship An Yue Jiang has been refused entry to Mozambique and Tanzania–and is now possibly headed for Namibia or Angola.   Trade unions in South Africa and beyond are asking their counterparts to refuse to unload and transport the weapons onboard–the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) is calling for an international boycott of the ship, noting in a statement that:

Cosatu is doing everything possible to alert the international trade union movement to the danger to the workers of Zimbabwe if the cargo is allowed to be unloaded and delivered to Mugabe’s forces. The federation is writing to its comrades in other federations, including those of Angola and China to enlist their support for the international workers’ boycott.

South African representatives of the International Transport Workers’ Federation, which encompasses 650 unions in 148 countries, say that the federation is also mobilizing its members to refuse to transport the weapons to Zimbabwe.