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Thursday, July 03, 2008
Update on Zimbabwe's 2008 Elections
Julia Nesbitt
Wildland Adventures would like to provide an update on Zimbabwe to travelers who may be visiting Southern Africa and Victoria Falls. The political situation in Zimbabwe has been rapidly deteriorating since the 1990s and although most of Wildland Adventures clients never venture into Zimbabwe, we believe that it is important to keep up to date with the politics in Zambias neighboring country. Our clients who visit the beautiful Victoria Falls stay on the Zambian side, in Livingstone.
The situation is deplorable on many levels, not the least of which is complete absence of personal freedom for the voters of Zimbabwe. However, there has been no threat of violence to tourists and no disruption at all in Victoria Falls.
Below is the latest update from our ground operators in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe:
The Zimbabwe elections went ahead on Friday June 27th despite the fact that Morgan Tsvangirai of the MDC withdrew from the process. Robert Mugabe was therefore the only candidate and officially won more than 80% of the vote. Election monitors from the African Union (AU) have since declared that the process fell short of their standard of free and fair democratic elections. The AU has met in Egypt where Zimbabwe was on the agenda and has dominated the summit. The AU summit adopted a resolution calling for dialogue between Mugabe and the Democratic Movement for Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai, and the creation of a national unity government. In Zimbabwe there have been isolated reports of continued violence against MDC supporters, but these have been very limited geographically, meaning that we can confidently endorse travel into the tourism hub of Victoria Falls and also to the remote concessions in Hwange and Mana Pools National Parks. These areas have not been at all affected in recent weeks and months despite our caution in shifting guests over the election period. The camps have reopened, and we continue to run tours and transfers in Victoria Falls. We are still committed to the country and its people and look forward to peace and stability being returned to Zimbabwe as soon as possible and as always we undertake to put our guest experience and safety above all else and will advise you accordingly.
