zimbabwe
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
The situation is now so bad that foreign reporters, for the protection of themselves as well as of their sources, have to report everyone under false names. After all, if you know who the reporter is, you can deduce who the woman is, and vice versa.
And yet, Zimbabwe is trying to "woo" foreign journalists back inside -- heaven only knows why. Maybe they're running out of people who can easily be tortured, and they're looking for unattached outsiders to practice on.
Fri, 20 Jun 2008 08:33
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....
Apparently, you can only feel safe if you're (1) not Zimbabwean, and/or (2) working for one of the government mouthpieces and parrotting the government line, and/or (3) a complete and total tool, not reporting on anything important.
And the upcoming runoff election promises to be not only heavily rigged, but almost guaranteed to break into open civil war, as opposed to the shadow war that's been going on -- though I suppose the question is, does it quite count as a civil war if one side has most of the thugs and all of the guns?
Thursday, 19 June 2008 22:08
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).” [...]
...If? Even with the ballot-box stuffing, I should think that an outright loss was all but assured, as is an army clampdown on the country when that happens. And these days, the people of Zimbabwe have no place to go. Foreigners are being brutalized and killed in South Africa and Angola, and frankly, most of their neighbors are worn down with Zimbabwe's mess spilling over its borders into their countries.
Zimbabwe looks to be a problem with no real solution in the near future.