Waves of attacks ahead of Zimbabwe election

HARARE, Zimbabwe — Zimbabwe will have a presidential runoff election Friday, an epochal choice between Robert Mugabe, the 84-year-old liberation hero who has run the nation for nearly three decades, and the opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai.

Mugabe accused the opposition of falsely claiming that their supporters were being beaten, state-run media reported Saturday.

"They say this so that they can later say the elections were not free and fair. Which is a damn lie," the state Herald newspaper quoted Mugabe as saying at a campaign rally Friday in Bulawayo.

The same day, Tsvangirai said that a "wave of brutality" has swept Zimbabwe since the runoff was called and implored Zimbabweans not to lose hope that they can change their country. His message was distributed by e-mail, one of the few ways he can reach voters.

The body of the wife of Harare's newly chosen mayor was found Wednesday, her face so badly bashed in that even her own brother only recognized her by her brown corduroy skirt and plaited hair. On Thursday, the bodies of four more opposition activists turned up after they had been abducted by men shouting ruling party slogans.

The killing of activists and their families has deprived the opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, not only of its dead stalwarts but hundreds of other essential workers who have fled.

At least 85 people have been killed since the March 27 vote, according to civic group tallies, including several opposition-party operatives who, while little known outside Zimbabwe, were mainstays within it.

"They're targeting people who are unknown, because cynically they know they can get away with it," said David Coltart, an opposition senator.

The violence has been aimed at voters as well. So-called pungwe sessions, the Shona word for all-night vigils, have become common in areas where people once loyal to Mugabe dared vote against him in the first round of voting on March 29. Villagers are rousted from their homes and herded together. Suspected opposition supporters are then called forward to be thrashed.

The U.S. Embassy has released amateur video footage shot from a car window of a group of men running in terror from a small gang of militants.

Witnesses said gangs of militants wearing bandannas and scarves of Mugabe's party and carrying sticks and clubs roamed the township of Chitungwiza and other Harare townships Saturday after manning makeshift roadblocks overnight.

Residents were advised to stay indoors and avoid traveling by road at night. Militants also set up camps in suburban grassland and frog-marched residents to political meetings, the witnesses said.

The Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights said most of the 85 dead were victims of militants of Mugabe's party, but at least five were ruling-party supporters. The group said 14 new victims were added to the list Thursday.

"When Mugabe declares himself the winner, the world must know what he has done," said the opposition's director of elections, Ian Makone, who has gone underground and travels only at night. Two of his chief aides have been killed; several others have scattered into exile.

Mugabe openly portrays the election in the terminology of warfare. Either he will win, he insists, or he will keep power by force.

"We are not going to give up our country for a mere X on a ballot," he said in a speech last week. "How can a ballpoint pen fight with a gun?"

Compiled from The New York Times and The Associated Press