MDC spokesman Jacob Mafume has made it clear that party leader Nelson Chamisa will not attend the Presidential Candidates meeting today until people imprisoned after the Stay Away are released from jail.
He said his party considers any talks meaningless when people are in jail, said Mafume:
It’s a rally. He wants dialogue in a room that will have over a hundred people, most of them his proxies.
Our supporters have been arbitrarily detained on trumped-up charges and the MDC is essentially banned as a political organisation. They (the government) are using the emergency rules. Some of our MPs and officials have been released by the courts and immediately re-arrested at the prison gate, some beaten to die later.
We must create an environment for talking. Half of the party’s leadership is in hiding. The army is in every suburb; the army is out of the barracks. Under those conditions, you can’t just summon people. There’s no arbiter – you’re the chairman when you’re the main protagonist; the one killing, the one arresting people.
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