“The South African observer mission to Zimbabwe’s presidential election suffered a crippling blow to its credibility yesterday after its leader refused to acknowledge that Zanu-PF supporters attacked some of his monitors.
About 200 chanting youths laid siege to the office of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in the small mining town of Kwekwe on Friday as South African observers were inside. They also stoned the monitors’ car.
Sam Motsuenyane, the leader of the South African delegation, insisted however that he could not identify the attackers. “They were an amorphous mob,” he said. “I can’t associate them with any group, though the motive must have been political.”
After the withdrawal last week of European Union monitors, the Zimbabwean opposition had hoped that the presence of the South African team would temper the worst excesses of followers of Robert Mugabe. Those prospects have now been ended.”
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