Stories on Zimbabwe are like buses - we wait for one for ages, and then three come along at once.

Sekai Holland has said in an interview that Mugabe’s ZANU PF party are working on the assassination of various senior members of the MDC. It has since been asked if it is the BBC or Holland that is lying - which would suggest that the story holds no water.

In Zimbabwean politics, everyone is a target. Whether that target is for assassination or just having their credibility wiped out, it makes little difference. Mugabe has a reputation for taking out big players, one way of the other.

The Gukurahundi in the 1980s sought to punish the Matabele people for opposing his rule and culminated in the Peace Accord between him and Joshua Nkomo, and thereafter ZAPU was gobbled up by ZANU PF and spat out with absolute disdain.

Last year, Mugabe’s people killed at least 130 people in the run-up to the second round of the Presidential election. It all culminated with Tsvangirai withdrawing from the poll. But no cases are before the court seeking justice for these killings.

In another story, a man has been found in possession of three IDs whilst allegedly working as an MDC security detail.

The MDC have not reported this to the police as they believe that very little will be done by them as they will run and hide behind the idea that ‘this is political’.

Of course it is political! This is how Mugabe operates! He works right under the noses of the MDC and when he is found out, he either just ignores the problem, denies it or ensures that nothing further can be done about it.

Reverse the issue, and if anyone were stupid enough to be caught working undercover in Mugabe’s camp, if they were not dispatched to another world, they would spend the rest of their natural lives as an inmate at Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison (and the life expectancy of people in Zimbabwe is less than 40 years…).

A third story suggests that the ‘accident’ that killed the Prime Minister’s wife, Susan, in March, wasn’t… an accident, that is.

“The car crash in March this year which caused the death of the Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s wife Susan was not an accident, says Dutchman Peter Hermes, an independent advisor to Tsvangirai.”

“I think that the judiciary in Zimbabwe is very busy covering up what happened. Also the police didn’t investigate what happened. They were destroying forensic evidence immediately after the accident. They left the car for a couple of days upside down by the side of the road so it was very hard for independent investigators to find evidence,” says Hermes who has worked closely with Tsvangirai ever since he was a union leader.

Hermes’ comments come just days after a magistrate in the town of Chivhu postponed judgement in the case of the driver accused of causing Susan Tsvangirai’s death as a result of her being thrown out of the car following the collision. Chinowona Mwanda maintained that he had hit a concrete lump in the road, lost control of his vehicle and hit the Prime Minister’s Land Cruiser as it travelled in convoy along the Harare-Masvingo highway.”

Within hours of the accident, I started to ask questions, but when the PM himself told the world that it was an accident - nothing more - I was not entirely convinced.

“It has been widely publicised that Deon Theron, the vice-president of Zimbabwe’s commercial farmers union, happened to be at the scene of the accident and took photographs that the police could have used as evidence. Instead, according to media reports, the police arrested him and destroyed the evidence.

“Firstly of all, he (the truck driver) was not an employee of the company that hired the car to US AID, which had hired the car for food transport. The person who normally drove it was not driving that day. It has also been shown that he was a member of the Central Intelligence Organisation - like the two people in the cars in front and behind Tsvangirai. They were appointed by Robert Mugabe to protect the Prime Minister - but at the moment of the accident both those cars were far away from car of Tsvangirai. Which is also very suspicious, you could say.”

Either way, very little is going to happen. The driver will be convicted of culpable homicide, and will receive a jail sentence. End of story.

“I am convinced (it was not an accident) but I can’t prove it. There have been many accidents in the past for political reasons in Zimbabwe in which many people have died. There has never been any proof that the government was involved. However everyone believes it has been the case. Another circumstantial piece of evidence is that arrangements for Mugabe to visit the hospital after the accident had been made before it actually took place. Like I say, I have no proof, but this is my opinion.”

The people and the family will not have closure, something which they both not only deserve, but should receive as a matter of course.

Robb WJ Ellis
The Bearded Man