MDC OFFICIAL ON POSSIBLE CIO INVOLVEMENT IN

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 HARARE 002094 SIPDIS NSC FOR SENIOR AFRICA DIRECTOR J. FRAZER LONDON FOR C. GURNEY PARIS FOR C. NEARY NAIROBI FOR T. PFLAUMER E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/20/2013 TAGS: PGOV ASEC PHUM ZI MDC SUBJECT: MDC OFFICIAL ON POSSIBLE CIO INVOLVEMENT IN HARVEST HOUSE SHOOTINGS REF: (A) WDAYTON-EYOUNG TELCON/E-MAILS (B) FBIS AFP20031020000058 (C) HARARE 1973 AND PREVIOUS Classified By: Political officer Win Dayton under Section 1.5(b)(d), ¶1. (C) SUMMARY: The MDC's Chairman for Harare Morgan Femai related to poloff on October 20 a first person account of the shootings at MDC's Harvest House headquarters on October 18. The senior MDC official present when the events took place, Femai alleged that the shooter, Ronnie Chihota, was associated with the Central Intelligence Organization (CIO), which had taken charge of the case. Femai reported that CIO personnel had beaten him and others at the site and had confiscated MDC training materials during their search of MDC headquarters. END SUMMARY. ¶2. (C) According to Femai, he and just a few staff from the MDC's information department were at the office when events unfolded the morning of October 18. He was leaving the building at about 11 a.m. when he noticed Chihota going into the building, sans jacket and with a gun visible at his side. Chihota was a lawyer who had an office in the building. Three unarmed MDC-associated youths who were acting as building security yelled for him to stop and chased him up the stairs when he did not. Femai said he heard five shots coming from the second floor, and then saw two of the MDC youths emerge wounded from the building. The third was lying unconscious on the second floor. Femai phone the police, who responded immediately. When police asked who had shot the youths, Chihota said he did and turned his weapon over to police. The three youths were put in the car of MDC MP from Hwange P. Nyoni, who had arrived at the scene, and taken to Avenues Clinic. Femai went with them and police representatives, who asked him to return with them to Harvest House to identify the shooter and give an official account. The police assured him that Chihota would be prosecuted and would pay for his crime. ¶3. (C) Femai said that on his return to Harvest House, the CIO, who he said had been summoned by Chihota, had taken control of the situation, to the exclusion of the police. Femai alleged that CIO superiors at the scene instructed the police to "beat everybody, including onlookers." Nonetheless, MDC senior adviser Ian Makoni was invited up to the sixth floor for questioning; at Makoni's request, Femai accompanied. On the sixth floor Femai was beaten by a man armed with an AK-47 and dressed in civilian garb. He identified Femai as the senior MDC official for Harare and berated him for being a trouble-maker and pledged to "fix him". Femai said he was beaten with fists and kicked until the security official tired, and was later beaten again until a senior official ordered the official to stop. ¶4. (C) According to Femai, Chihota was present all the while, insulting Femai and urging the official on in the beating. During the beating, Chihota had exclaimed "you think you own this building but it is I who owns it," and dwelled on Femai's role in the suspension of municipal officials in Harare's tendentious local politics (ref C). Since the CIO had arrived, Chihota had changed his story to allege that he had chanced upon the three MDC youths engaged in a shootout at Harvest House among themselves; he had taken a stray bullet himself even as the others were shooting each other. The security officials were using his story as a pretext to search MDC headquarters, ostensibly to find the guns used by the youths in their gunplay (none were found). Femai asserted that it also served as a pretext to place the three youths under guard at the hospital under suspicion of attempted murder, although Embassy has been unable to corroborate media reports that charges were filed against the youths. The one critically injured had stabilized and the other two were out of danger but all could count on being tortured in an effort to influence their testimony, Femai asserted. ¶5. (C) Femai elaborated on Chihota's curious past contacts with the MDC. Chihota rented a floor in Harvest House but had sublet most of it. Femai only saw him there once every month or two and had never seen any clients visit him. When Femai was arrested with other MDC members in April, Chihota had shown up at the police station and appeared to be giving instructions on who could be released. Femai said that Chihota at that time had said "you can let the old man (Femai) go" until somebody told him that Femai was the MDC's Chairman for Harare. The MDC, which Femai said owned Harvest House, concluded that Chihota was associated with the CIO and tried unsuccessfully to terminate his lease. On October 17, Chihota reported to the police that there had been a kidnapping at Harvest House. Femai said that the MDC had voluntarily opened its doors to the police, who found nothing in connection with their investigation of the report. ¶6. (C) Femai speculated that Chihota may have been going after him when he entered the building that morning. He noted that he had been the focus of Chihota's attention during the shootings' aftermath and observed that, as a leading figure in efforts to oust Harare's acting mayor (ref C),he was a natural target for ruling party interests. He alleged further that the acting mayor's husband worked for the CIO. ¶7. (C) After Femai's beatings ceased, he telephoned MDC Secretary-General Welshman Ncube for help. Ncube resisted SIPDIS but finally accepted Femai's invitation to come to the office. On Ncube's arrival, the security official involved in the beating left. Control of the office eventually was returned to the MDC, but not before officials had taken away certain organizational training material. ¶8. (C) COMMENT: State prosecution of the youths, should it proceed, would be consistent with a tradition of prosecuting victims in Zimbabwe. In the absence of a regular independent press, associated MDC publicity will have increasing difficulty making use of such fodder for domestic political purposes, although the independent "Standard" ridiculed the police account of the incident in its Sunday edition. The extent to which this incident stemmed from a premeditated government effort is difficult to assess: Chihota's behavior seems unlikely for either a lawyer-tenant or a CIO operative. SULLIVAN