Zimbabwe is experiencing an "epidemic of torture" according to an Idasa paper released this week.

The paper, authored by human rights expert Piers Pigou, said it appeared that the ongoing gross human rights violations in the troubled country fell into the category of crimes against humanity rather than just "political violence". The paper comes as Zimbabwe prepares for a presidential runoff on 27 June amid mounting state-sponsored violence against members of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change.

Pigou, a former investigator for South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, said the Zimbabwean government would be hard pressed to deny the widespread complicity of state officials in the perpetration of gross human rights violations in the country since 2000. "A range of violations have been diligently recorded, often with supporting legal and medical documentation," said Pigou. "These include abduction, disappearances, extra judicial execution, and most extensively the widespread employment of torture and other forms of physical and psychological abuse...

"Zimbabwe is experiencing an epidemic of torture currently, as it has at least twice before in its recent history."

[...] But it was critical that crimes against humanity should not escape an accounting, and no-one would want to see the "Sarajevo joke" repeated in Zimbabwe. The "joke", Pigou said, was this: "When someone kills a man, he is put in prison. When someone kills 20 people, he is declared mentally insane. But when someone kills 200 000 people, he is invited to Geneva for peace negotiations."

BBC NEWS | World | Africa | Eyewitness: Raped for opposing Mugabe

Twenty three-year-old Zimbabwean Maidei [not her real name] struggled to talk about her ordeal at the hands of Zimbabwe's ruling party youths who were keeping her captive.

Nearby the Zanu-PF base in rural Mashonaland West province, she told me about how she had been raped and abused for two weeks. "I was taken hostage by Zanu-PF youths who are being led by a major and war veteran," she said. "One of them said I had to renounce my allegiance to opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). I had to give in to his demands as he said I could be beaten. It was against my will and he did not use any protection." [...]

[...] According to Maidei, the abuse tends to happen at night-time vigils, called "pungwes". These are gatherings held in the open where people are forced to sing revolutionary songs to prove their loyalty to the ruling party. Many residents in the area are made to attend, including girls as young as 16 where, if they catch a commander's eye, they are kept at the base until the militia leave the area. Maidei said she was more vulnerable in such a situation as she was a widow - her husband died of TB three years ago, leaving her with two children.

A local Zanu-PF official explained to me that the pungwes, used during the war of independence, were still necessary as "political re-orientation" exercises to warn people "against the opposition which is backed by the West". Asked about the allegations that men were raping women and girls forcibly at the meetings, he replied matter-of-factly: "We have to share in comradeship as we have the same aim to get rid of the opposition here." He confirmed that the young and beautiful women were often identified at the meetings and made to stay on with the group leaders...

...Whilst captive, Maidei said that she felt her parents were safe from attack. Asked whether she would report the rapes when released, she said it would depend on the political landscape after the elections. "I am living in fear," she said.

The reporter's name has been changed for his own protection

Zimbabwe is hosting eight journalists from the Middle East as part of its "perception management programme", the state-owned Herald newspaper reported on Friday. The Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA) had invited the reporters — who are mainly travel writers — "to see, first-hand, the situation in Zimbabwe", the online version of the state newspaper said.

The paper quoted a Dubai-based British journalist as saying she "felt safe in Zimbabwe". "I feel pretty welcome in Zimbabwe. I was greeted with smiling faces and I'm interested in seeing what the situation in Zimbabwe is like," said Kate Hazell of ITP, a publishing group in Dubai.

Another journalist, Adam Wilson of AMG media group, reportedly told the newspaper: "Zimbabwe is an amazing country with friendly people."

ZTA Chief Executive Karikoga Kaseke said another delegation from Japan, with journalists, travel agencies and tour operators was scheduled to arrive in Zimbabwe at the weekend "as part of this aggressive tourism marketing campaign". [...]

[...] Zimbabwe is preparing for a presidential run-off election on 27 June. The run-up has been marred by violence and more than 70 opposition supporters have been killed since the first round of elections at the end of March....

ZIMBABWE: Journalists feel the heat (irinnews.org)

HARARE, 20 June 2008 (IRIN) - Zimbabwean journalists and their families are coming under increasing pressure from security police and the military as the 27 June presidential election run-off vote draws closer. Those reporters still working for the country's few remaining independent newspapers told IRIN that in the past two weeks there had been a noticeable increase in attacks against journalists as well as their families.

Freelance correspondent Tapiwa Zivira, who has exposed government corruption, recently documented the politically motivated murder of an opposition activist. Last week, soon after the story was published, his father was abducted by ZANU-PF supporters in Bindura, Mashonaland Central Province and his whereabouts remain unknown. Zivira told IRIN in an interview that "As far as I know, my father has never taken an active interest in politics. I was told by those who witnessed the abduction that the ZANU-PF [the ruling party until the general election on 29 March] supporters who took him away accused him of being an MDC [Movement for Democratic Change] supporter." He hopes his father will be found alive. After the interview with IRIN, Zivira left for the area - a ZANU-PF stronghold - to search for his father, but the pattern emerging from such abductions is that the person's body is usually found a few days later, often half-buried in a riverbed or hidden under bush scrub.

Speaking on condition that they were not identified, several journalists told IRIN that they were now being forced underground, fearing for their lives.

"I received a telephone call from a relative in the security services who told me that he had been going through a list of journalists who were supposed to be attacked. On the same list were members of the MDC and civic society activists. My relative advised me to relocate, and I have not been home since the beginning of the week," one independent reporter told IRIN....

POLICE officers were this week reportedly forced to cast their postal ballots in favour of President Robert Mugabe in a bid to secure a head start for the veteran leader ahead of Friday’s presidential run-off against the MDC’s Morgan Tsvangirai.

Tsvangirai won the first round of voting on March 29 with 48% of the votes, against Mugabe’s 43%.

Impeccable sources told the Zimbabwe Independent that apart from police officers, members of the army and the prison service were expected to vote for Mugabe through the same system before the postal ballot boxes are sealed today. Zimbabwe is estimated to have a combined 100 000 members of the police, army and prison service.

The sources said the police officers voted at various stations throughout the country, among them Ross Camp in Bulawayo, Harare Central’s Provincial Conference centre and at all stations in Kwekwe. The officers, the sources said, voted in front of their superiors and the voting process was done in the absence of Mugabe and Tsvangirai’s election agents or observers....

Rigging fears heighten as number of observers slashed (swradioafrica.com)
By Lance Guma
20 June 2008

The independent Zimbabwe Election Support Network says out of 8,800 local monitors accredited to cover the March 29 poll, only 500 have been approved to monitor the June 27 presidential run-off. The deliberate cutback in numbers has heightened fears that Mugabe’s regime is planning to rig the upcoming election. ZESN submitted the names of 23 000 monitors to the Ministry of Justice but were told the presence of observers, ‘disrupts the smooth flow of voting.’ In an interview with the UK Financial Times, Noel Kututwa, ZESN board chairperson said, ‘the idea is to make it impossible to do what we did (in the first round). It will be very difficult but not impossible.’

After the first round vote ZESN director Rindai Chipfunde was arrested by police as she arrived at Harare International Airport from abroad. Police claimed they wanted to question her about the elections results collated by her group. Since then several ZESN observers have been brutally murdered, attacked and tortured. Various countries, including Tanzania, Swaziland and Angola have come out to declare that the elections will never be free and fair. Tanzanian Foreign Minister Bernard Membe, representing the 3 countries, said some of the observers in the country had seen two people shot dead in front of them. ‘We have told the Government of Zimbabwe to stop the violence,’ he said....

Division in Mugabe’s poll team on reaction to a defeat (businessday.co.za)
Posted to the web on: 20 June 2008
Dumisani Muleya
Harare Correspondent

ZIMBABWEAN President Robert Mugabe’s campaign team is deeply divided on what to do if he loses next week’s critical presidential election runoff.

A senior Zanu (PF) official said yesterday there was a fierce debate on what to do if Mugabe lost. This had created a “dangerous Hobbesian situation", in which any actor capable of imposing a new order, however authoritarian, could take over. “There are different views on what should be done if the president loses,” the official said. “Some want him to go peacefully, while others say he must fight back by whatever means. This situation has created room for the army to get into power, and create a regime geared to impose order by force.”

Mugabe’s chief spokesman, Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa, refused to clarify what Zanu (PF) would do if Mugabe lost. Mugabe said a few days ago he would “wage war” if he lost. He was not prepared to let rival Morgan Tsvangirai take over the country because a “ballpoint cannot fight a gun”.

Mugabe, who has claimed the elections are being held in “circumstances of an all-out war", said: “We are prepared to fight for our country, and to go to war (if we lose).” [...]

The UN Security Council on Thursday demanded an end to persistent sexual violence during armed conflict, calling it a war crime and a component of genocide. Approved by all 15 members, Council Resolution 1820 "demands the immediate and complete cessation by all parties to armed conflict of all acts of sexual violence against civilians with immediate effect". It also urged that "all parties to armed conflict immediately take appropriate measures to protect civilians, including women and girls, from all forms of sexual violence".

Chaired by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the council said "rape and other forms of sexual violence can constitute a war crime, a crime against humanity, or a constitutive act with respect to genocide".

It indirectly threatened suspected war-time rapists with prosecution before The Hague-based International Criminal Court....

In a report to the UN Security Council on 11 June, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said: "The level of grave violations against children in Somalia has been increasing over the past year, particularly with regard to the recruitment and use of children in armed conflict; the killing, maiming and rape of children; and the denial of humanitarian access to children." [...] Ban's account noted that the number of cases of rape and other sexual assaults against children reported to UN and partner monitoring organizations rose from 115 in 2007 to 128 this year. However, these numbers are not reflective of the actual numbers of cases. "The vast majority of cases of sexual violence in Somalia are not reported," said Balslev-Olesen....

War Against Women (cbsnews.com/60 Minutes transcript)
Jan. 13, 2008

Right now there's a war taking place in the heart of Africa, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and more people have died there than in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Darfur combined. You probably haven't heard much about it, but as CNN's Anderson Cooper reports, it's the deadliest conflict since World War II. Within the last ten years, more than four million people have died and the numbers keep rising. As Cooper and a 60 Minutes team found when they went there a few months ago, the most frequent targets of this hidden war are women. It is, in fact, a war against women, and the weapon used to destroy them, their families and whole communities, is rape.

Dr. Denis Mukwege is the director of Panzi Hospital in Eastern Congo. In this war against women, his hospital is the frontline. One of the latest victims he’s treating is Sifa M'Kitambala. She was raped just two days before the team arrived by soldiers who raided her village.

"They just cut her at many places," Dr. Mukwege explains. Sifa was pregnant, but that didn't stop her rapists. Armed with a machete, they even cut at her genitals.

In the last ten years in Congo, hundreds of thousands of women have been raped, most of them gang raped. Panzi Hospital is full of them.

"All these women have been raped?" Cooper asked Dr. Mukwege, standing near a very large group of women waiting.

All the women, the doctor says, have been patients of his. Within a week, Dr. Mukwege says this room will be filled with new faces, new victims. "You know, they're in deep pain. But it's not just physical pain. It's psychological pain that you can see. Here at the hospital, we've seen women who've stopped living," Dr. Mukwege explains.

And not all the people the hospital treats are adults. "There are children. I think the youngest was three years old," Mukwege says. "And the oldest was 75."

To understand what is happening here, you have to go back more than a decade, when the genocide that claimed nearly a million lives in neighboring Rwanda spilled over into Congo. Since then, the Congolese army, foreign-backed rebels, and home-grown militias have been fighting each other over power and this land, which has some of the world's biggest deposits of gold, copper, diamonds, and tin. The United Nations was called in and today their mission is the largest peacekeeping operation in history.

Since 2005, some 17,000 UN troops and personnel have cobbled together a fragile peace. Last year they oversaw the first democratic election in this country in 40 years. But now all they have accomplished is at risk. Fighting has broken out once again in Eastern Congo and the region threatens to slip into all out war.

Each new battle is followed by pillaging and rape; entire communities are terrorized. Forced to flee their homes, people take whatever they can, and walk for miles in the desperate hope of finding food and shelter. Over the last year, more than 500,000 people have been uprooted. A fraction of them make it to cramped camps, where they depend on UN aid to survive.

One camp Cooper visited sprang up just two months before. It was already overcrowded, but more people kept arriving. They would go there seeking refuge, a safe haven, but the truth is in Congo, for women, there’s no such thing. Even in these supposedly protected camps, women are raped every single day.

"Has rape almost become the norm here?" Cooper asks Anneka Van Woudenberg, who is the senior Congo researcher at Human Rights Watch.

"I think because of the widespread nature of the war, because there has been so much violence, rape is now on a daily basis - rape is the norm," Van Woudenberg replies.

"Women get raped in wars all the time. How is it different here?" Cooper asks.

[Van Woudenberg:] "I think what's different in Congo is the scale and the systematic nature of it, indeed, as well, the brutality. This is not rape because soldiers have got bored and have nothing to do. It is a way to ensure that communities accept the power and authority of that particular armed group. This is about showing terror. This is about using it as a weapon of war," she explains......

Retired detectives named in a decades-old Chicago Police torture scandal have been subpoenaed by a federal grand jury -- a clear sign a criminal investigation into former Cmdr. Jon Burge and others is ramping up, sources said today. Five to 10 detectives received subpoenas last week to appear June 19 before the grand jury. The probe is headed by Sergio Acosta, civil rights coordinator in the U.S. attorney's office in Chicago, the sources said. A spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office declined to comment, but pointed to a statement U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald made last September announcing his office is engaged in a criminal investigation into the matter.

In January, the city approved a nearly $20 million settlement with four former Death Row inmates who claimed Burge and more than 20 officers who worked with him in the 1970s and 1980s coerced murder confessions from them. A special Cook County prosecutor investigated the torture claims, but in a controversial final report found Burge and other detectives could not face criminal charges in state court because the statute of limitations expired.

Federal investigators stepped in. They are focused on sworn statements Burge and other detectives made in 2003. If they can show those statements are false, authorities could charge the retired officers with obstruction of justice, sources said. The federal statute of limitations does not expire until November — five years after the sworn statements were made, the sources said.

Burge denied any torture took place in written answers to questions submitted to him in 2003 in a lawsuit filed by one of the Death Row inmates, Madison Hobley. Hobley is the subject of a separate federal investigation into a fatal 1987 fire that led to his conviction in state court. He spent 16 years on Death Row for the crime, but was pardoned in 2003 by then-Gov. George Ryan because of the torture allegations.

Retired Chicago Police Detective William Pedersen, one of the defendants in a torture lawsuit brought by former Death Row inmate Aaron Patterson, said he was not one of the officers who received a federal subpoena last week. But he heard that other retired detectives were subpoenaed to appear before a federal grand jury. “When is this going to end?” said Pedersen, who denies he tortured Patterson.

As usual, Burge politely answered a reporter’s call today, but would not comment beyond a few pleasantries. “Carol, number one, you know I can’t talk to you and I’ve told you that 28 times before. So no comment,” he said. Asked how he was doing, Burge joked, “I never had a bad day in my life, though I’ve been know to fib occasionally.” [...]

Retired Chicago cops being called by federal grand jury -- chicagotribune.com
By Angela Rozas and Jeff Coen | Tribune reporters
11:30 PM CDT, June 10, 2008

A group of retired Chicago police officers has been subpoenaed to appear before a federal grand jury later this month, the latest step in an ongoing federal investigation into a three-decade-old torture scandal focused on former Cmdr. Jon Burge. Sources said about 10 officers have been subpoenaed, and an attorney representing three of them said that the officers are expected to appear before the grand jury June 26.

Last September, U.S. Atty. Patrick Fitzgerald said that his office was conducting a criminal investigation into officers' actions regarding alleged torture of criminal suspects from the 1970s to the early 1990s. While he didn't name Burge or the officers, Fitzgerald said at the time that his office would look into whether any of the officers lied under oath or obstructed justice as part of the civil litigation resulting from allegations that police tortured dozens of suspects. A special prosecutors' report paid for by Cook County and released in 2006 concluded that dozens of suspects had been tortured but that no one could be prosecuted because the statute of limitations had run out.

Attorney Joseph Roddy said Tuesday he has been contacted through the police officers' union to represent three retired officers who have been subpoenaed by the federal grand jury, but that he may eventually be representing more.

Burge denied any torture took place while answering written questions in 2003 as part of the lawsuit filed by one of the alleged victims, Madison Hobley, according to Hobley's attorney. IIf federal prosecutors conclude that Burge lied in his 2003 answers, that could fall within the statute of limitations, which expires in November.

In January, the city approved a $20 million settlement with four alleged torture victims, including Hobley.

A Rough Day on the Show
...I have been hard on both of these candidates at times, and praised them both as well at other times. In truth, I was annoyed with one of them at various points, only to get annoyed at the other at other times, and it really doesn't matter who I voted for because it was the person I was less annoyed with on that particular day. Had my primary occurred a week later I would likely have voted for the other!

That said, we now have a presumptive nominee, and it is historic and it's time for everyone to come together. I have challenged listeners throughout these months about their support of both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. But one thing I have said is that no matter what happens, we've got to beat down John McCain.

That's why I got tough on Wednesday with many angry Clinton supporters -- understandably demoralized -- who called in to say that there was no way they could vote for Obama and would now be voting for McCain. This, even though they would rather a Democrat, and in some cases they are gay and understand that John McCain courts antigay bigots....

find I'm having this discussion, this weird little debate, more and more, with colleagues, with readers, with liberals and moderates and miserable, deeply depressed Republicans and spiritually amped persons of all shapes and stripes and I'm having it in particular with those who seem confused, angry, unsure, thoroughly nonplussed, as they all ask me the same thing: What the hell's the big deal about Obama?

I, of course, have an answer. Sort of.

Warning: If you are a rigid pragmatist/literalist, itchingly evangelical, a scowler, a doubter, a burned-out former '60s radical with no hope left, or are otherwise unable or unwilling to parse alternative New Age speak, click away right now, because you ain't gonna like this one little bit.

Ready? It goes likes this:

Barack Obama isn't really one of us. Not in the normal way, anyway.

This is what I find myself offering up more and more in response to the whiners and the frowners and to those with broken or sadly dysfunctional karmic antennae - or no antennae at all - to all those who just don't understand and maybe even actively recoil against all this chatter about Obama's aura and feel and MLK/JFK-like vibe.

To them I say, all right, you want to know what it is? The appeal, the pull, the ethereal and magical thing that seems to enthrall millions of people from all over the world, that keeps opening up and firing into new channels of the culture normally completely unaffected by politics?

No, it's not merely his youthful vigor, or handsomeness, or even inspiring rhetoric. It is not fresh ideas or cool charisma or the fact that a black president will be historic and revolutionary in about a thousand different ways. It is something more. Even Bill Clinton, with all his effortless, winking charm, didn't have what Obama has, which is a sort of powerful luminosity, a unique high-vibration integrity. [...] Are you rolling your eyes and scoffing? Fine by me. But you gotta wonder, why has, say, the JFK legacy lasted so long, is so vital to our national identity? Yes, the assassination canonized his legend. The Kennedy family is our version of royalty. But there's something more. Those attuned to energies beyond the literal meanings of things, these people say JFK wasn't assassinated for any typical reason you can name. It's because he was just this kind of high-vibration being, a peacemaker, at odds with the war machine, the CIA, the dark side. And it killed him.

Now, Obama. The next step. Another try. And perhaps, as Bush laid waste to the land and embarrassed the country and pummeled our national spirit into disenchanted pulp and yet ironically, in so doing has helped set the stage for an even larger and more fascinating evolutionary burp, we are finally truly ready for another Lightworker to step up....

A constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage in California was placed on the Nov. 4 ballot Monday, kick-starting an election struggle that will have repercussions across the nation. Secretary of State Debra Bowen's certification of the initiative, which would amend the state Constitution to limit marriage to a union between a man and a woman, comes as no surprise to either side of the same-sex marriage issue.

When backers of the initiative, who needed 694,354 valid signatures to make the ballot, turned in more than 1.1 million signatures, the only question was when the certification would come. "We're not surprised by this at all and have been getting ready to run a very aggressive campaign," said Steve Smith, a senior campaign consultant to the Equality for All effort, which will try to defeat the initiative. "This (initiative) asks California voters to take away a fundamental right from same-sex couples, and we don't believe they are willing to do that."

Signatures for the proposed amendment were filed with county clerks across the state in late April, weeks before the state Supreme Court overturned Proposition 22, a ballot measure that also banned same-sex marriage and passed with 61 percent of the vote in 2000. If the new amendment is passed, it will overturn the state court's ruling. Opponents of same-sex marriage already are arguing that the court should not have overturned the vote of the people on same-sex marriage and have said they are confident that their fall campaign will draw support not only from voters in California but from citizens across the nation.

California officials plan to begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples beginning June 17. Opponents of the court's 4-3 decision have called on the court to delay that action until after the November election, but no decision on that request has been made.

A Field Poll released last week showed that for the first time in 30 years of polling on the gay marriage question, a majority of Californians now supports same-sex marriage and a more voters are unwilling to overturn the state Supreme Court decision....