Zimbabwe police shut another art exhibition
Police in Zimbabwe shut down an art exhibition exploring violence blamed on President Robert Mugabe, an attorney said on Monday.
Artist Owen Maseko collected family photos of missing people, images of mine shafts where bodies were believed dumped and reports on an armed uprising after independence in 1980 in the western Matabeleland district that was crushed by troops loyal to Mugabe.
Thousands of civilians were massacred in the fighting.
Attorney Kucaca Phulu said that Maseko, his client, spent the weekend in jail on incitement charges after police shut down the exhibition in Bulawayo on Saturday.
Maseko sought bail on Monday but the court's ruling was postponed to Tuesday, Phulu said.
On Wednesday, police in Harare forced a human rights group to abandon a photo exhibition about political violence blamed on Mugabe's supporters.
Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, the former opposition leader now in a year-old coalition government with Mugabe, opened that exhibition and condemned police for their repeated attempts to seize the 65 photographs that went on display, forcing organisers to eventually close the show.
Police tried to impound the exhibits after Tsvangirai left the Harare gallery where the exhibition was staged. Tsvangirai had said such exhibits were part of a campaign for national healing called for under the coalition deal brokered by South Africa.
Matabeleland massacre
As many as 20 000 civilians died in the Matabeleland uprising between 1982 and 1987 staged by disaffected guerrillas of the minority Ndebele tribe who fought in the bush war that ended white-rule in the former British colony of Rhodesia, as Zimbabwe was known before independence.
North Korean-trained troops of Mugabe's majority Shona tribe were accused of the massacre of village communities who allegedly assisted the rebels.
The fighting ended with a peace deal that made then-opposition leader Joshua Nkomo vice-president to Mugabe. Nkomo died in 1999
and his former strongholds in the west of the country largely switched their allegiance to Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change party.
In the last 10 years of harassment since the MDC emerged as the first real threat to Mugabe's nearly 30 years in power, police have regularly closed down theatres featuring critical and satirical drama, arresting actors, producers and audiences, and shut down music concerts with a political theme.
Observers say it is the first time they have interfered with an art exhibition. - Sapa-AP
