Tsvangirai was traveling in a three-vehicle motorcade south of the capital Harare when a truck approaching from the opposite direction suddenly swerved into Tsvangirai’s car, causing it to rollover three times, injuring Tsvangirai and killing his wife of 31 years, Susan. Observers say that had Tsvangirai’s driver not reacted instantly, the truck likely would have crashed into them head-on.
In the past few years a number of prominent Zimbabwean politicians have died in automobile accidents on the nation’s roads, that fact plus the ill-will between Tsvangirai and President Robert Mugabe and the presence at the hospital that received him of three prominent members of the Joint Operations Command – a security force that previously led secret operations against the opposition MDC party – all sparked rampant speculation that the “accident” wasn’t an accident.
Mugabe himself quickly sensed this and rushed to the hospital to visit his injured Prime Minister (a man Mugabe had arrested and beaten on numerous occasions in the past). The United States overseas development agency, USAID, also acted promptly to release a statement that the truck that caused the accident belonged to them, and was transporting HIV medicines to Harare – a move perhaps to shift suspicion away from Mugabe.
This morning Tsvangirai himself finally publicly said that he believed the crash was indeed an accident (even though his MDC party had called for an independent investigation over the weekend), and pledged to quickly get back to work. It is a statement that should quiet the conspiracy theories, at least somewhat. But that the rumors circulated so wildly and that Mugabe himself felt the need to act so quickly is a sign of just how fragile is the situation in Zimbabwe today.
No comments:
Post a Comment