[NYTr] Brit BBC Bashing Zimbabwe Again

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

[Zimbabwe is the country that that the Brits love to hate. The BBC
especially bashes Zimbabwe with relish, since they've been tossed
out of the country and have to file all their reports from South
Africa. Here's their latest. -NY Transfer]

BBC - Sep 13, 2007 via rick kissell
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/6991681.stm

Zimbabwe's dirty tricks brigade

by Joseph Winter
BBC News

Pius Ncube is widely believed in Zimbabwe to be the latest victim of 
dirty tricks by the feared Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO).

Bishop Ncube, who has just resigned as the Archbishop of Bulawayo, has 
been a vocal critic of the government.

In July this year, he called for foreign intervention to remove 
President Robert Mugabe.

A week later, he called the president a "megalomaniac, a bully and a 
murderer".

Barely two weeks after that, state media gleefully published photos - 
allegedly of Bishop Ncube in bed with a married woman.

The bishop denies the allegations, but whatever the truth the scandal 
has led to his resignation, with her husband suing him for damages.

"The CIO manufactured all that," says Tendai Biti, secretary general of 
one faction of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

"He fought the regime and the regime fought back."

Bishop Ncube himself talks of the "crude machinations of a wicked 
regime" but vows: "I will not be silenced".

He has, however, lost his job and it remains to be seen whether his 
voice will carry the same influence without the backing of such an 
influential post.

Lovemore Madhuku from the National Constitutional Assembly, which 
campaigns for political reform in Zimbabwe, says that as soon as you 
stand up and criticise the government, you are taking a huge risk.

Opposition activists have been beaten up, tortured and even killed but 
CIO agents also employ subtler methods, such as those many believe were 
used against Bishop Ncube.

"They visit your husband, or your wife, or your workplace and try to 
interfere in your day-to-day life," Mr Madhuku told the BBC News website.

"They are very clever," he says. "They cannot force you to have an 
affair but they study you, so they can take advantage of your weaknesses."

He says that other favoured methods are to entrap businesspeople into 
doing something illegal, like dealing in foreign currency.

They then keep this information and use it against you when they judge 
the time is right, blackmailing you into giving up politics.

Mr Madhuku says CIO agents have repeatedly gone to the University of 
Zimbabwe, where he works in the law faculty, to try to get him sacked.

He says they have successfully managed to stop him taking a high-profile 
role in his church.

Spreading mistrust

The CIO reports directly to the office of the president and agents are 
selected on the basis of their loyalty to Mr Mugabe and his Zanu-PF party.

It has a massive budget despite Zimbabwe's economic woes, access to the 
latest technology and a massive network of informers.

"You don't know who you're talking to, who you can trust," Mr Biti says.

He says they have infiltrated every structure of every organisation in 
the country. And opposition parties are first in their firing line.

Two years ago, the MDC, which has presented Mr Mugabe with its strongest 
challenge since he led Zimbabwe to independence in 1980, split into two 
factions, making it far less effective.

Many see this as another CIO coup.

Mr Madhuku alleges their agents infiltrated the highest levels of the 
party and successfully played on the egos of top MDC officials to 
engineer a split.

Although the government denied involvement at the time, this was not the 
first time that MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai had been targeted.

Trumped-up treason

Just weeks before the 2002 presidential election, he was charged with 
treason, based on the evidence of Ari Ben-Menashe, a Canada-based 
political consultant.

He testified that in a secretly-filmed meeting in December 2001, Mr 
Tsvangirai had asked him to arrange the assassination of President Mugabe.

As evidence, he produced a grainy tape-recording.

However, on that occasion, the CIO's standards had slipped and it was 
obvious that the tape had been heavily edited in an amateurish attempt 
to put incriminating words into Mr Tsvangirai's mouth.

The clock in the corner of the CCTV footage kept on flicking backwards 
and forwards.

With its tentacles reaching into every facet of Zimbabwean life, the CIO 
no doubt tried to ensure that a compliant judge heard the case.

But for whatever reason, on this occasion, their plans failed and Mr 
Tsvangirai was acquitted.

Nevertheless, the possibility of a death sentence must have been a huge 
distraction for the opposition leader for more than two years, making 
him less of a threat to Mr Mugabe.

He was not the first opposition leader to be tried for treason on 
spurious grounds in Zimbabwe.

Reverend Ndabaningi Sithole, Mr Mugabe's rival for more than 20 years, 
always claimed that he had been set up when he was charged with trying 
to assassinate Mr Mugabe in 1997.

On this occasion, he was found guilty and sentenced to two-and-a-half 
years in prison, although he died, aged 80, before serving any time.

Before the treason charges, another CIO ploy to discourage one of only 
two opposition MPs at the time, had been to show Rev Sithole a document 
allegedly showing that his wife was having an affair with a government 
minister.

Mr Madhuku says such petty interference, as much as the threat of 
physical violence, is why many ordinary Zimbabweans decide not to get 
involved in politics, despite the country's economic collapse.

Mr Biti concurs, and says: "Mr Mugabe owes his position to dirty tricks 
and the 'securicrats' who invent them. The 'securicrats' are the real 
brains of this regime."