Jasmine Holmberg

Staff Writer

On March 9-11, Zimbabwe held their presidential elections, which resulted in President Robert Mugabe's re-election. Mugabe has been president for the 22 years Zimbabwe has gained their independence from Britain. Following the election, demonstrators have been protesting, arguing that the elections were engineered in Mugabe's favor and are demanding a revote. Hundreds of protestors have been arrested since early April.

Mugabe has refused any demands for a revote, saying that, ``The next poll will be held six years hence. Let that sink in to Britain and its surrogates in the MDC.''

Mugabe was referring to the party, Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), led by Morgan Tsvangirai, who was defeated by Mugabe in March's elections. MDC has strong British support and has been joined in protest by the Unites States who condemned the vote.

Tsvangirai is at the head of the protest movement, in which several hundreds of government critics and labor parties are a part. In the past weekend alone 64 protestors were arrested, many of them a part of the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA). The NCA argues that the Zimbabwe Constitution itself is responsible for the election corruption, saying that flaws in the Constitution prevent the people from having a free and fair election. The NCA is calling for changes to be made to the Constitution to ensure a fair election. Two days earlier 350 women, members of the NCA, were arrested for unlawfully meeting. Several witnesses of the weekend arrests stated that the police beat the protestors with batons.

Amnesty International has condemned these attacks in a statement last week, saying that the ruling party is using these attacks as a means of oppression and revenge.

All of these arrests are a result of the Public Order and Security Act which was passed earlier this year. The act requires police approval for gatherings that could be of a political nature and consist of more than three people. Police have used this law to break up approximately eighty protests and end a three-day national work strike. They have also forced The Book Café, an intellectual meeting place, to cancel all political debates and politically satirical performances.

All of these actions have drawn criticism from activists who say that this is just one step in Mugabe's efforts to make Zimbabwe a police state. They remain firm in their resolve to protest until a re-election takes place.

As one activist said, ``The police ban on our planned peaceful demonstrations is unlawful and unconstitutional. We are going ahead, even if they have to keep jailing people.''

Brian Raftopoulos, a political analyst with the Zimbabwe Institute of Development Studies said that the new security measures were reminiscent of a dictatorship. ``It has had a most debilitating effect on the continuity of discourse and action on the protection of free expression, movement and association,'' says Raftopoulos. He describes them as being ``very repressive but effective.''