Don't let Zimbabwe be the next Rwanda - Church Council

|PIC1|Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe said on Sunday that he was heading for a sweeping victory after Friday's presidential run-off election.

"The returns show that we are winning convincingly, that we have won in all the 26 constituencies in Harare, an MDC stronghold where we won in only one constituency in March. That is the trend," Mugabe said in footage broadcast on state television.

"We are heading for a sweeping victory," Mugabe said in the local Shona language at a relative's funeral late on Saturday.

The one-candidate election, held amidst widespread violence and an economic meltdown, has been heavily criticised by the international community. Prime Minister Gordon Brown denounced the election as a "new low", whilst Marwick Khumalo, head of an observer team from the Pan-African Parliament, said on Sunday that "the current atmosphere prevailing in the country did not give rise to conditions for the holding of free and fair democratic elections".

"These elections were not free and fair," he said.

Lutherans meeting in Tanzania have, meanwhile, urged the international community not to let the crisis in Zimbabwe degenerate into the next Rwanda.

"The world must not stand idly by, as it did during the genocide in Rwanda, and watch the unfolding of a human catastrophe," stated the Lutheran World Federation Council in a statement issued on the eve of the election, referring to the Rwandan Genocide in 1994 when nearly one million people were killed in around 100 days.

Langham Partnership's Jonathan Lamb said last week that he had received reports from ministry partners in Zimbabwe that Mugabe's Zanu-PF party supporters were beating people up and forcing them to chant pro-Zanu slogans.

People were turning to the churches to escape the political violence, including torture, abductions and killings, one pastor said.

The LWF Council added in its statement, "We especially denounce the systematic, organised, politically-motivated intimidation and violence whereby the current government has sought to retain power.

"We note that the perpetrators of that intimidation and violence have not hesitated to target church leaders and clergy, as well as opposition party leaders and members, media representatives, academics, specific groups within Zimbabwean society, and anyone thought to have voted for the opposition in the 29 March elections."