Zimbabwe: MDC fear police planted arms in Tsvangirai home raid


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Police in Zimbabwe have raided Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s residency claiming they are searching for stolen dangerous weapons from the police or the army.

The raid occurred in the early hours of Saturday. Said an MDC top official, “Armed police numbering over 50 raided the residence on the pretext that they were looking for arms stolen from the police or the army,”

“They ransacked every room and took a bunch of valuable party material
from a room occupied by our organising secretary Morgan Komichi. They
beat up the wife and sister of the caretaker before they started digging part of the garden ostensibly in search of weapons.

“The decision we took last week and the efforts we are making in government to protect public funds all have to do with these acts of
frustration.”

The raid came hard on the heels of reports that guns and ammunition disappeared from Pomona Barracks in Borrowdale in unclear circumstances.

It also coincided with Tsvangirai’s return from a whirlwind tour of South Africa, Mozambique, the DRC and Angola where he lobbied for the region to pressure on President Robert Mugabe to fully implement their power-sharing agreement.

Zimbabwe’s police spokesperson Wayne Bvindzijena says they will investigate the raids.

The raids, analysts say, would only serve to escalate political tension after the MDC partially pulled out of government.

“We regard it as serious evidence of a few in ZANU-PF and securocrats who want us out of the government. On our part, this is nothing new. They will continue to plant arms and attempt to kill us but we will look the dictatorship in the eye” the MDC said.

The MDC-T feared that the police could have planted arms of war in the
garden after they took the caretaker, Moffat Sigauke, into the house while many officers remained outside.

“When they took Moffat into the house, the majority of them remained in the garden and we fear that they might have planted arms there,” he said.

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