STATE OF THE NATION ON AFRICA DAY
ZIMBABWE UNDER SEIGE
ZIMBABWE UNDER SEIGE
INTRODUCTION
“As I sit in Qunu and grow as ancient as its hills, I will continue to entertain the hope that there has emerged a cadre of leaders in my own country and region, on my continent and in the world, which will not allow that any should be denied their freedom as we were; that any should be turned into refugees as we were; that any should be condemned to go hungry as we were; that any should be stripped of their human dignity as we were. I will continue to hope that Africa’s Renaissance will strike deep roots and blossom forever, without regard to the changing seasons.” Nelson Mandela addressing United Nations General Assembly in 1998:
Africa Day was first marked on May 25, 1963 with the establishment of the Organization of African Unity (OAU), which was transformed into the African Union (AU) in 2002. 25 May is a day when Africa should be celebrating unity, diversity and tolerance. The situation in Africa today is a far cry to the goals set by the African body, which is failing to come up with concrete solutions that effectively end conflict in the Darfur and Somalia among other conflict zones in Africa.
Zimbabweans joins the whole continent in commemorating Africa day although they have nothing much to celebrate about. Africa day comes as a sad reminder of the deteriorating human rights situation in Zimbabwe exacerbated by the political violence unleashed on the citizenry by Zanu Pf after the March 29 election of 2008 as reprisal for voting for the opposition.
BACKGROUND
There is a new dispensation, a paradigm shift in the fight for human rights and civil liberties in Zimbabwe. The dichotomy of the Zimbabwean human rights fighters is premised in the irony that they themselves are now the hunted, the victims of Zanu PF’s terror campaign. Some say the post election violence is symptomatic of the proverbial last kicks of an ailing horse yet the evidence on the ground suggest otherwise. The ceaseless attacks on opposition members and human rights activists is consistent with the warnings Mugabe sent well before the March 29 harmonised elections, that Zanu PF will never be removed through the ballot. The service chiefs also competed against each other in sending sentiments to the same accord and making careless innuendos that they will go back in the bush and start war if any other political party won the elections. Many people dismissed these statements as mere threats. Now that the election is over, the sincerity of the threats is now surfacing. Fully blown evidence of intolerance to defeat is widespread. There are systematic arrests, detentions without hope for trial in the immediate future, heavy torture by police, abductions and daily kidnapping of opposition and human rights activists, and graphic murder by heavily funded Zanu PF operatives.
HUMAN RIGHTS SITUATION IN ZIMBABWE
Fighting for human rights in the face of a Zanu PF onslaught has always been risky since Zimbabwe got it independence in 1980. Indeed. Since the formation of the Movement for Democratic Change human rights defenders have experienced uncountable incidences of intimidation, assault, abductions and arrests on a certain scale but have remained resolved that whatever it takes, the moral justification of our fight, the good fight for liberty, justice, freedom, good governance, transparency and accountability, supersedes all forms of threats on human life.
Since 1997, Zimbabwe has seen a growth in scale and numbers institutions championing human rights and civil liberties. To name but a few there are Organizations like Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition, National Constitutional Assembly, Zimbabwe Lawyers For Human Rights, ZimRights, Human Rights NGO Forum, Zimbabwe Congress for Trade Union, Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ), Zimbabwe National Students Union (ZINASU), NANGO,YIDEZ among others.
Each institution, either individually or in collective capacity through networking with other organizations, has managed at one point in time to pressure for some changes in their respective field one way or the other. And for sure we have made noise, a lot of it, making sure that our cries and screams, demands and claims, lawsuits and demonstrations, amplify the underlying craving of the Zimbabwean people for real freedom and tangible development of life. The whole essence of the struggle is to put pressure on the incumbent governing authorities to promote good governance and democracy, make efforts to craft policy that bring sustainable development and take steps, even baby steps, towards respecting people’s rights, freedoms and people’s general welfare.
POST ELECTION VIOLENCE AND THE REALITY ON THE GROUND
It is close to two months since people went to vote on 29 March, and for the first time in Zimbabwean history, Robert Mugabe came second after an opposition leader, and Zanu PF lost control of parliament to opposition. Now the nation is bracing for a very painful presidential runoff, at a time when the nation is now flowing in rivers of blood that is being shed by Zanu PF’s well funded network of war veterans, youth militia and state organs such as the army, CIO, state security agents and police.
In the Zanu PF campaign known as ‘Operation Mavhotera papi?’ (Who did you vote for?)’ military bases have mushroomed in every constituency where war veterans, youth militia and the army are terrorising people in the rural areas. To date more than 50 people from opposition MDC have been killed. Thousands have fled from their homes in the rural areas and reports of Internally Displaced People (IDP) are still coming in. Hundreds have broken arms and legs, many rendered crippled for the rest of their lives. There are volumes of graphic pictures showing people who have been assaulted severely by the Zanu PF supporters who are under specific instructions to intimidate people into voting for Robert Mugabe ahead of the July 27 presidential election runoff. The available medical institutions which experienced a flooding influx of casualties are failing to cope with casualties. A report from Zimbabwe Doctors of Human Rights shows that hundreds of patients are being sent home because of capacity constraints.
There is a huge humanitarian crisis looming in Zimbabwe and people are dying. Over 3000 families have been displaced and institutions are failing to contain them. Some churches are sheltering some internally displaced people (IDP) but the scale of the crisis is of a magnitude never imagined that it will take a more holistic consented effort to really help the victims.
THE HUMANITARIAN CRISIS – Effects of an Early Winter
Countrywide there are reports that people have fled their homes and are now living in mountains. Most people interviewed in Masvingo have been sleeping in the mountains for more than a month now because their houses have either been burnt or they received credible threats to their lives from Zanu PF supporters. Their homes have been burnt to ashes and the victims have been attacked and chased away.
This year’s winter season is proving to be the worst as the cold is already biting deep early on in May. Winter has come at a time when thousands of people are not living in homes. Most of the victims do not have blankets as they were burnt during the politically motivated attacks.
Churches have been housing people since the beginning of the reprisal against opposition supporters and have been mobilising communities to assist the victims with food, clothes, blankets and other necessities, albeit not enough to abate the humanitarian vacuum created by the chaos. The government has not spared the churches either. Church pastors and reverends in Harare and Bulawayo are being victimised for keeping the victims in ‘Safe houses’.
Although MDC party has had the primary responsibility of providing for the welfare of the people, they do not have enough resources to help the victims. Some civic organisations are chipping in and helping out but still, what can be done by a conglomerate of organisations with limited funding in the face of a national onslaught by the State against the millions of people who voted against it?
ABDUCTIONS AND KILLINGS IN ZANU PF BASES
The presidential election runoff has been set for 27 June 2008. Until then people will have to brace for a very tough and rocky road towards the election. The reports of abductions are coming in daily and the trend so far is proving that once a person is abducted, the chances of them coming back alive are very slim. The past few days speak volumes. On 21 May the nation buried Cain Nyeve and Godfrey Kauzani in Harare, who were abducted and killed in cold blood, their eyes gouged and tongues cut out. Their bodies were dumped in Goromonzi district, Mashonaland East.
On 17 May 2008, MDC buried Better Chokururama who was killed by the same people who abducted and murdered Nyeve and Kauzani in Murewa. On 22 May 2008, Tonderai Ndira was confirmed dead after he was kidnapped at home in full view of his family in Mabvuku. He was found dumped in Goromonzi a week after the abduction, his body already decomposed. His eyes and tongue were also removed during the blue kill. He was buried today (25 May 2008) at a time when African is celebrating Africa Day. On 24 Saturday the senatorial candidate of MDC in Murewa north, Shepherd Jani, who had been kidnapped from his office in Murewa around 1100 hrs on Thursday 22 May 2008, was reported dead, killed by suspected state secret agents. On Friday two men and one female were found dead in Uzumba, Mashonaland East, although their identity is not yet verified.
Reports are still trickling in every single day of the same stories countrywide and it is increasingly becoming difficult to collate and compile the accurate statistics of the casualties since it is an ongoing operation of weeding out any potential threats to Zanu PF rule. Peoples’ houses are currentlty being burnt on a large scale in the rural areas and the numbers of Internally Displaced People (IDP) is increasing daily. All this violence comes at a time when Mugabe, who claims to be a pan African leader, is coming out in the state newspaper saying that violence should stop. He echoed the same rhetoric today during the launch of Zanu PF campaign ahead of the July 27 presidential run-off elections.
ZANU PF STRATEGY OF ELIMINATION AND INTIMIDATION AHEAD OF PRESIDENTIAL RUNOFF
The Zanu PF strategy of winning elections is multi-layered. Firstly it is apparent that displacing opposition supporters or anyone suspected to have voted for MDC from their home areas is aimed at disenfranchising the populace of their right to vote. The logic is simple. To date thousands and thousands of people have fled from their homes because they have either been beaten or had their houses burnt.
The strategy is quite effective in the rural areas because, with the geographical arrangement of rural settlements, people know each other and in most cases their political orientation is known. Since the partial Zimbabwe Electoral Commission announced that the Presidential runoff will be ward based, MDC will be robbed of hundreds of thousands of votes of people who fled from their constituencies who will constitutionally not be able to vote in their temporary residence where they are sheltered. Presently there is no evidence that people will find confidence of returning to their homes to vote because of the presence of Military bases in the constituencies.
Secondly MDC might fail to launch an effective campaign in hot areas such as Mash East, Mash West and Central. In areas like Uzumba, Maramba and Pfungwe, Mt Darwin, Mutoko, Mudzi, Murewa etc, there is no illusion that MDC will not succeed in sending people to campaign let alone send in polling agents on the day of elections. They have been informally declared MDC no-go-areas. The intimidation campaign is just beginning.
The abductions and killings are not only aimed at intimidating people, but to cripple and paralyse the system and decision making arsenal of the opposition, destabilising its structures and even weeding out its influential leadership so that no one will stand out to the task of completing the victory pattern that had been gained in the recently held elections.
Zimbabwe has become a dangerous terrain and it is individuals not organisations that are targeted and arrested, detained, abducted and killed. Human rights activists can no longer operate the way they have been doing in the pre -election period. By then the worst possible things that could happen were arrests, detentions or assaults. But now it is a blessing to be arrested by the police, because then people can trace one’s whereabouts. The current abductions being done by the State on MDC members and human rights activists are paralysing the strength of the opposition and intimidating the citizenry and the trend shows that no one is found after being kidnapped.
For the past two weeks, more often than not, the people who have been abducted were either found dead or badly beaten and left for dead. ROHR Zimbabwe national coordinator Tichanzii Gandanga, who is also the provincial director of elections in MDC, is a case in point. He was abducted from his office in Harare and found three days later, having been stripped naked by more than 12 men in the middle of the night at some place in Mash East, beaten heavily in the back by sticks and his legs run over by a 4x4 truck more than six times. Having been left for dead, Tichanzii Gandanga was lucky to be alive and is still struggling with his legs. He’s in hiding and is no longer performing duties effectively. His wife is being tracked by unknown men and has since been put into hiding.
SECURITY CONCERNS FOR OPPOSITION MEMBERS AND HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVISTS
All the remaining Human rights activist and champions of human rights, journalists, politicians alike, are on high alert, because Zimbabwe is now a dangerous terrain and that fact can never be over-emphasised. There comes a time that one has to think about his/her own security and take steps to avert a potential tragedy on oneself because once you are abducted very little can be done to help. People are being fished out from their homes, offices and even while travelling on foot or in cars, and when that happens you will be alone and vulnerable.
Any of this is in the backdrop of enthusiastic teams of Central Intelligence Officials who are heavily funded for the operation. What can institutions, organisations, opposition parties do, nothing. Maybe the least they can do is to increase security for its members, assist them in finding safe houses and any other strategy that can avoid the abductions. Once a member is taken, there is no more organisations can do for their members except to pray and hope that he or she will be found alive. Police is either apathetic to such incidences or actively participating in the operation.
RECOMMENDATIONS
As Africa commemorates Africa day, serious thought should be given towards the plight of Zimbabwean who seem to have been left at the mercy of a marauding leader who is committing human rights crimes under the managed impression that is it is a necessary measure of ensuring that the gains of the revolution are protected.
It is imperative, in the light of the current ongoing onslaught on the opposition and human rights groups, that there be a massive movement that calls for immediate International Intervention.
Africa Union and United Nations must step in decisively and deal with the now defunct rule of Zanu PF which has lost all credibility and legitimacy so that life can be preserved.
We categorically state that Zimbabwe can no longer afford to be held at ransom by the illusion that Thabo Mbeki’s purported SADC mandate to mediate will brew anything meaningful for Zimbabwe when people are dying in numbers.
In the face of overwhelming evidence exposing the Zanu PF terror campaign, the victims languishing in hospitals and people being buried in shallow graves in the rural areas, Mr. Mbeki affords to say ‘there is no crisis in Zimbabwe’ and that Zimbabwe can solve its own problems. The President of MDC, Morgan Tsvangirai was in exile, but SADC was comfortable with the notion and mere hope that Zimbabwean crisis is manageable.
Thabo Mbeki recently admitted that he cannot solve the Zimbabwean problem. It is probably so because South Africa is even failing to restrain its own people to stop the xenophobic attacks on foreigners currently spreading around the country like veld fire claiming more than 50 lives in the process.
Today African Union is faced with historic tests on its effectiveness in dealing with conflict in the Sudanese Darfur, Somalia, DRC, and Eritrea and now Zimbabwe is promising to be an explosive situation that begs for decisive action from the world bodies.
CONCLUSION
Zimbabwe is in an abyss of confusion and probably at its darkest moments since the Gukurahundi massacre of Ndebele people in the mid 80s’. The environment is not conducive for the holding of a free and fair runoff and we call upon an end to the terrorism on citizenry by its own government which has a constitutional mandate to protect them and create a free environment where freedom of speech, expression and association is respected and maintained. People of Zimbabwe should be accorded the right of political association without fear of reprisal for holding differing political opinions. We call for immediate international intervention to stop the killings and elimination of opposition members and human rights activists. The people of Zimbabwe can only hope, and continue hoping that SADC, AU and UN will stop hoping together with us but start acting upon the plight and send various commissions of inquiry to quickly arrest the progression of a crisis in the beleaguered South African country.
Africa Day was first marked on May 25, 1963 with the establishment of the Organization of African Unity (OAU), which was transformed into the African Union (AU) in 2002. 25 May is a day when Africa should be celebrating unity, diversity and tolerance. The situation in Africa today is a far cry to the goals set by the African body, which is failing to come up with concrete solutions that effectively end conflict in the Darfur and Somalia among other conflict zones in Africa.
Zimbabweans joins the whole continent in commemorating Africa day although they have nothing much to celebrate about. Africa day comes as a sad reminder of the deteriorating human rights situation in Zimbabwe exacerbated by the political violence unleashed on the citizenry by Zanu Pf after the March 29 election of 2008 as reprisal for voting for the opposition.
BACKGROUND
There is a new dispensation, a paradigm shift in the fight for human rights and civil liberties in Zimbabwe. The dichotomy of the Zimbabwean human rights fighters is premised in the irony that they themselves are now the hunted, the victims of Zanu PF’s terror campaign. Some say the post election violence is symptomatic of the proverbial last kicks of an ailing horse yet the evidence on the ground suggest otherwise. The ceaseless attacks on opposition members and human rights activists is consistent with the warnings Mugabe sent well before the March 29 harmonised elections, that Zanu PF will never be removed through the ballot. The service chiefs also competed against each other in sending sentiments to the same accord and making careless innuendos that they will go back in the bush and start war if any other political party won the elections. Many people dismissed these statements as mere threats. Now that the election is over, the sincerity of the threats is now surfacing. Fully blown evidence of intolerance to defeat is widespread. There are systematic arrests, detentions without hope for trial in the immediate future, heavy torture by police, abductions and daily kidnapping of opposition and human rights activists, and graphic murder by heavily funded Zanu PF operatives.
HUMAN RIGHTS SITUATION IN ZIMBABWE
Fighting for human rights in the face of a Zanu PF onslaught has always been risky since Zimbabwe got it independence in 1980. Indeed. Since the formation of the Movement for Democratic Change human rights defenders have experienced uncountable incidences of intimidation, assault, abductions and arrests on a certain scale but have remained resolved that whatever it takes, the moral justification of our fight, the good fight for liberty, justice, freedom, good governance, transparency and accountability, supersedes all forms of threats on human life.
Since 1997, Zimbabwe has seen a growth in scale and numbers institutions championing human rights and civil liberties. To name but a few there are Organizations like Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition, National Constitutional Assembly, Zimbabwe Lawyers For Human Rights, ZimRights, Human Rights NGO Forum, Zimbabwe Congress for Trade Union, Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ), Zimbabwe National Students Union (ZINASU), NANGO,YIDEZ among others.
Each institution, either individually or in collective capacity through networking with other organizations, has managed at one point in time to pressure for some changes in their respective field one way or the other. And for sure we have made noise, a lot of it, making sure that our cries and screams, demands and claims, lawsuits and demonstrations, amplify the underlying craving of the Zimbabwean people for real freedom and tangible development of life. The whole essence of the struggle is to put pressure on the incumbent governing authorities to promote good governance and democracy, make efforts to craft policy that bring sustainable development and take steps, even baby steps, towards respecting people’s rights, freedoms and people’s general welfare.
POST ELECTION VIOLENCE AND THE REALITY ON THE GROUND
It is close to two months since people went to vote on 29 March, and for the first time in Zimbabwean history, Robert Mugabe came second after an opposition leader, and Zanu PF lost control of parliament to opposition. Now the nation is bracing for a very painful presidential runoff, at a time when the nation is now flowing in rivers of blood that is being shed by Zanu PF’s well funded network of war veterans, youth militia and state organs such as the army, CIO, state security agents and police.
In the Zanu PF campaign known as ‘Operation Mavhotera papi?’ (Who did you vote for?)’ military bases have mushroomed in every constituency where war veterans, youth militia and the army are terrorising people in the rural areas. To date more than 50 people from opposition MDC have been killed. Thousands have fled from their homes in the rural areas and reports of Internally Displaced People (IDP) are still coming in. Hundreds have broken arms and legs, many rendered crippled for the rest of their lives. There are volumes of graphic pictures showing people who have been assaulted severely by the Zanu PF supporters who are under specific instructions to intimidate people into voting for Robert Mugabe ahead of the July 27 presidential election runoff. The available medical institutions which experienced a flooding influx of casualties are failing to cope with casualties. A report from Zimbabwe Doctors of Human Rights shows that hundreds of patients are being sent home because of capacity constraints.
There is a huge humanitarian crisis looming in Zimbabwe and people are dying. Over 3000 families have been displaced and institutions are failing to contain them. Some churches are sheltering some internally displaced people (IDP) but the scale of the crisis is of a magnitude never imagined that it will take a more holistic consented effort to really help the victims.
THE HUMANITARIAN CRISIS – Effects of an Early Winter
Countrywide there are reports that people have fled their homes and are now living in mountains. Most people interviewed in Masvingo have been sleeping in the mountains for more than a month now because their houses have either been burnt or they received credible threats to their lives from Zanu PF supporters. Their homes have been burnt to ashes and the victims have been attacked and chased away.
This year’s winter season is proving to be the worst as the cold is already biting deep early on in May. Winter has come at a time when thousands of people are not living in homes. Most of the victims do not have blankets as they were burnt during the politically motivated attacks.
Churches have been housing people since the beginning of the reprisal against opposition supporters and have been mobilising communities to assist the victims with food, clothes, blankets and other necessities, albeit not enough to abate the humanitarian vacuum created by the chaos. The government has not spared the churches either. Church pastors and reverends in Harare and Bulawayo are being victimised for keeping the victims in ‘Safe houses’.
Although MDC party has had the primary responsibility of providing for the welfare of the people, they do not have enough resources to help the victims. Some civic organisations are chipping in and helping out but still, what can be done by a conglomerate of organisations with limited funding in the face of a national onslaught by the State against the millions of people who voted against it?
ABDUCTIONS AND KILLINGS IN ZANU PF BASES
The presidential election runoff has been set for 27 June 2008. Until then people will have to brace for a very tough and rocky road towards the election. The reports of abductions are coming in daily and the trend so far is proving that once a person is abducted, the chances of them coming back alive are very slim. The past few days speak volumes. On 21 May the nation buried Cain Nyeve and Godfrey Kauzani in Harare, who were abducted and killed in cold blood, their eyes gouged and tongues cut out. Their bodies were dumped in Goromonzi district, Mashonaland East.
On 17 May 2008, MDC buried Better Chokururama who was killed by the same people who abducted and murdered Nyeve and Kauzani in Murewa. On 22 May 2008, Tonderai Ndira was confirmed dead after he was kidnapped at home in full view of his family in Mabvuku. He was found dumped in Goromonzi a week after the abduction, his body already decomposed. His eyes and tongue were also removed during the blue kill. He was buried today (25 May 2008) at a time when African is celebrating Africa Day. On 24 Saturday the senatorial candidate of MDC in Murewa north, Shepherd Jani, who had been kidnapped from his office in Murewa around 1100 hrs on Thursday 22 May 2008, was reported dead, killed by suspected state secret agents. On Friday two men and one female were found dead in Uzumba, Mashonaland East, although their identity is not yet verified.
Reports are still trickling in every single day of the same stories countrywide and it is increasingly becoming difficult to collate and compile the accurate statistics of the casualties since it is an ongoing operation of weeding out any potential threats to Zanu PF rule. Peoples’ houses are currentlty being burnt on a large scale in the rural areas and the numbers of Internally Displaced People (IDP) is increasing daily. All this violence comes at a time when Mugabe, who claims to be a pan African leader, is coming out in the state newspaper saying that violence should stop. He echoed the same rhetoric today during the launch of Zanu PF campaign ahead of the July 27 presidential run-off elections.
ZANU PF STRATEGY OF ELIMINATION AND INTIMIDATION AHEAD OF PRESIDENTIAL RUNOFF
The Zanu PF strategy of winning elections is multi-layered. Firstly it is apparent that displacing opposition supporters or anyone suspected to have voted for MDC from their home areas is aimed at disenfranchising the populace of their right to vote. The logic is simple. To date thousands and thousands of people have fled from their homes because they have either been beaten or had their houses burnt.
The strategy is quite effective in the rural areas because, with the geographical arrangement of rural settlements, people know each other and in most cases their political orientation is known. Since the partial Zimbabwe Electoral Commission announced that the Presidential runoff will be ward based, MDC will be robbed of hundreds of thousands of votes of people who fled from their constituencies who will constitutionally not be able to vote in their temporary residence where they are sheltered. Presently there is no evidence that people will find confidence of returning to their homes to vote because of the presence of Military bases in the constituencies.
Secondly MDC might fail to launch an effective campaign in hot areas such as Mash East, Mash West and Central. In areas like Uzumba, Maramba and Pfungwe, Mt Darwin, Mutoko, Mudzi, Murewa etc, there is no illusion that MDC will not succeed in sending people to campaign let alone send in polling agents on the day of elections. They have been informally declared MDC no-go-areas. The intimidation campaign is just beginning.
The abductions and killings are not only aimed at intimidating people, but to cripple and paralyse the system and decision making arsenal of the opposition, destabilising its structures and even weeding out its influential leadership so that no one will stand out to the task of completing the victory pattern that had been gained in the recently held elections.
Zimbabwe has become a dangerous terrain and it is individuals not organisations that are targeted and arrested, detained, abducted and killed. Human rights activists can no longer operate the way they have been doing in the pre -election period. By then the worst possible things that could happen were arrests, detentions or assaults. But now it is a blessing to be arrested by the police, because then people can trace one’s whereabouts. The current abductions being done by the State on MDC members and human rights activists are paralysing the strength of the opposition and intimidating the citizenry and the trend shows that no one is found after being kidnapped.
For the past two weeks, more often than not, the people who have been abducted were either found dead or badly beaten and left for dead. ROHR Zimbabwe national coordinator Tichanzii Gandanga, who is also the provincial director of elections in MDC, is a case in point. He was abducted from his office in Harare and found three days later, having been stripped naked by more than 12 men in the middle of the night at some place in Mash East, beaten heavily in the back by sticks and his legs run over by a 4x4 truck more than six times. Having been left for dead, Tichanzii Gandanga was lucky to be alive and is still struggling with his legs. He’s in hiding and is no longer performing duties effectively. His wife is being tracked by unknown men and has since been put into hiding.
SECURITY CONCERNS FOR OPPOSITION MEMBERS AND HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVISTS
All the remaining Human rights activist and champions of human rights, journalists, politicians alike, are on high alert, because Zimbabwe is now a dangerous terrain and that fact can never be over-emphasised. There comes a time that one has to think about his/her own security and take steps to avert a potential tragedy on oneself because once you are abducted very little can be done to help. People are being fished out from their homes, offices and even while travelling on foot or in cars, and when that happens you will be alone and vulnerable.
Any of this is in the backdrop of enthusiastic teams of Central Intelligence Officials who are heavily funded for the operation. What can institutions, organisations, opposition parties do, nothing. Maybe the least they can do is to increase security for its members, assist them in finding safe houses and any other strategy that can avoid the abductions. Once a member is taken, there is no more organisations can do for their members except to pray and hope that he or she will be found alive. Police is either apathetic to such incidences or actively participating in the operation.
RECOMMENDATIONS
As Africa commemorates Africa day, serious thought should be given towards the plight of Zimbabwean who seem to have been left at the mercy of a marauding leader who is committing human rights crimes under the managed impression that is it is a necessary measure of ensuring that the gains of the revolution are protected.
It is imperative, in the light of the current ongoing onslaught on the opposition and human rights groups, that there be a massive movement that calls for immediate International Intervention.
Africa Union and United Nations must step in decisively and deal with the now defunct rule of Zanu PF which has lost all credibility and legitimacy so that life can be preserved.
We categorically state that Zimbabwe can no longer afford to be held at ransom by the illusion that Thabo Mbeki’s purported SADC mandate to mediate will brew anything meaningful for Zimbabwe when people are dying in numbers.
In the face of overwhelming evidence exposing the Zanu PF terror campaign, the victims languishing in hospitals and people being buried in shallow graves in the rural areas, Mr. Mbeki affords to say ‘there is no crisis in Zimbabwe’ and that Zimbabwe can solve its own problems. The President of MDC, Morgan Tsvangirai was in exile, but SADC was comfortable with the notion and mere hope that Zimbabwean crisis is manageable.
Thabo Mbeki recently admitted that he cannot solve the Zimbabwean problem. It is probably so because South Africa is even failing to restrain its own people to stop the xenophobic attacks on foreigners currently spreading around the country like veld fire claiming more than 50 lives in the process.
Today African Union is faced with historic tests on its effectiveness in dealing with conflict in the Sudanese Darfur, Somalia, DRC, and Eritrea and now Zimbabwe is promising to be an explosive situation that begs for decisive action from the world bodies.
CONCLUSION
Zimbabwe is in an abyss of confusion and probably at its darkest moments since the Gukurahundi massacre of Ndebele people in the mid 80s’. The environment is not conducive for the holding of a free and fair runoff and we call upon an end to the terrorism on citizenry by its own government which has a constitutional mandate to protect them and create a free environment where freedom of speech, expression and association is respected and maintained. People of Zimbabwe should be accorded the right of political association without fear of reprisal for holding differing political opinions. We call for immediate international intervention to stop the killings and elimination of opposition members and human rights activists. The people of Zimbabwe can only hope, and continue hoping that SADC, AU and UN will stop hoping together with us but start acting upon the plight and send various commissions of inquiry to quickly arrest the progression of a crisis in the beleaguered South African country.
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