A film secretly taken by a Zimbabwe prison guard and smuggled out of the country shows the extent of the rigging that took place for the June 27 presidential run-off vote, the Guardian said on Saturday. The film taken by Shepherd Yuda using a camera supplied by the newspaper shows prison staff being told by a war veteran how to fill in their ballot papers for Robert Mugabe.
Mugabe, in power since independence from Britain in 1980, claimed a landslide victory in the vote in which there was no opponent and which outside observers said was neither free nor fair due to a campaign of violence and murder. Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, withdrew from the run-off saying a fair vote was impossible because of the blatant attacks which he says have killed 103 of his supporters.
"I had never seen that kind of violence before," Yuda said in a video diary accompanying the clandestine filming. "How can a government that claimed to be democratically elected kill its people, murder its people, torture its people." Yuda, 36, a prison guard for 13 years, has fled the country with his family in fear of his life.
"I don't regret doing this, although it is a painful decision I have taken," he said. "We can live without the memories of seeing dead bodies in the prison, dead bodies in the street, dead bodies in my family." He said his uncle had been killed and his father beaten by gangs of thugs loyal to Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF.
"I've served this government for the past 13 years and was loyal to my government," the quietly-spoken Yuda said. "Unfortunately I didn't know that I was being loyal to a government that was not loyal to its people."
The film also shows a woman too scared to vote marking her finger with purple ink to make it appear that she had cast her ballot, and prison staff rallies at which the guards were forced to chant pro-government slogans.
The MDC says 1,500 of its supporters have been detained and another 5,000 are missing after being abducted by ZANU-PF gangs. Under pressure from the African Union, Mugabe has said he will talk with the MDC but only if it accepts that he is the country's rightful president.
Tsvangirai has rejected talks until violence ends. He says ZANU-PF party must accept him as the rightful election winner, after a first round poll in March in which he defeated the veteran president.
The MDC notes that not a single member of ZANU-PF has been arrested despite the murder of its supporters. MDC supporters arrested, on charges of political violence, included 20 legislators or parliamentary candidates, the opposition said in a statement. Members of parliament had been held for "trumped up charges" of inciting violence.
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