Zimbabwe: Security sector reform key to peaceful elections

An attack on a political rally by uniformed soldiers is stoking fears of a reprise of state-sponsored violence against NGOs, human rights activists and parties opposed to President Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF in the lead-up to a referendum on a draft constitution and scheduled parliamentary and presidential elections in 2013. Welshman Ncube, the leader of the smaller Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), addressed a gathering of about 1,000 people at the 21 September rally in Mutoka, in Zimbabwe’s Mashonaland East Province, before the assault occurred.