The party said it had received a written notice from the police that rallies it had planned in impoverished townships of the capital, Harare, would have to be canceled because the safety of party leaders could not be guaranteed — a seemingly paradoxical rationale, given that the police had confiscated Mr. Tsvangirai’s armored vehicle on Wednesday.Now, how much more creative can you get to stop an opposition leader to speak against you?
But that is not all: international relief agencies are barred from helping feed the starving for the duration of that campaign. They are accused of promoting anti Mugabe political activities. I suppose he is right: when Mugabe has nothing to offer you and some relief worker comes to you with at least a plate of cold oatmeal, it makes a powerful political statement. That is, assuming that you are not too weak to go to vote afterwards....
What is it with this pseudo leftist dictators that have no qualms in barring international help to reach their people as we just saw dramatically in Myanmar/Burma a few days ago? Believe me, Chavez is perfectly able to follow suit: he has already done it when international aid to Venezuela Vargas disaster in 1999 was either refused, stolen or left to rot in some harbor because some permit was missing or some address error was detected and the Venezuelan authorities could not be bothered to inquire.
-The end-