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Zimbabwean doctors: Violence hurt hundreds

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published April 16, 2007

HARARE, Zimbabwe - An independent doctors organization said Sunday that hundreds of Zimbabweans have been injured or traumatized during a surge of political violence by security authorities over the past month.

Those injured since police violently broke up a prayer vigil in Harare on March 11 include six opposition activists hit by gunshots, one fatally, the Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights said.

At least 49 prodemocracy leaders, including Morgan Tsvangirai, head of the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change, needed hospitalization for serious injuries, the group said.

"There are hundreds of others who have been injured, maimed and traumatized" in the government's crackdown, it said.

The group, whose members include health services staff and most of Zimbabwe's independent physicians, also publicized an international petition calling for an end to state-orchestrated violence and torture in the troubled southern African nation.

The petition said members of the medical group had been routinely intimidated by security forces while trying to treat and tally political injuries.

President Robert Mugabe, who has ruled since independence in 1980, previously admitted that Tsvangirai was assaulted March 11, saying the activist was "thoroughly beaten up by police" and had "asked for it."

Mugabe told youth militants of his ruling ZANU PF Party that injured opposition leaders would "get arrested and get bashed" again if they protested against the government because the "police have a right to bash."

The president also described the youth militants as a "big hard-knuckled fist" that could be easily summoned into action by party leaders against opponents.

Police say six officers have been injured in the month of unrest and what they call "an orgy of violence" in an alleged campaign of terror and gasoline bombings by the opposition. Tsvangirai denies those charges.

The doctors group said political violence is worsening already "fragile living conditions" for ordinary Zimbabweans. It noted life expectancy for women is now 34 years, the lowest in the world, and 21 percent of adults are officially estimated as being infected with AIDS.

[Last modified April 16, 2007, 02:03:54]