Zimbabwe suffering from structural impunity – Amnesty International
By KING SHANGO
Published on: 12th July, 2009
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ZIMBABWE – HARARE – The heat was turned up a notch on Zimbabwe this week as Amnesty International – which once campaigned for the release from prison of President Robert Mugabe during the liberation struggle – presented a damning report to the government of national unity documenting what it called “structural impunity” in the country.
Added to a looming food crisis expected to affect six million people and instructions banning the remaining 350 white commercial farmers from working on their land, the new unity government between President Mugabe, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara now also had to fend off fresh accusations that it allowed human rights violations to go unpunished.
The report, which came as Tsvangirai wrapped up a three-week international tour seeking to raise funds to help Zimbabwe emerge from years of acute recession, complicates matters for the Prime Minister, who is keen to convince skeptical Western governments that the country is on the mend and is committed to righting past wrongs.
Amnesty International secretary general Irene Khan said the presentation of the report to government this week was in sync with promises made last week to share with the government a full memorandum of the mission’s findings and recommendations that there had been a pattern of human rights violations in Zimbabwe since the 1970s and 1980s to the brutal election violence that wrecked Zimbabwe after Mugabe and Zanu (PF)’s electoral loss.
Khan said 190 people were killed during last year’s violent general election.
But Zimbabweans had never seen the issue of impunity addressed, they had only seen pardons, amnesties and clemencies.
“The ordinary Zimbabwean hasn’t had any sense of justice – not just from the 70s, (under the previous Rhodesian government) but up to 2008,” she said.
“With this report we are hoping to jog the international community and the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) into action.
If we don’t do anything, what hope are we giving to the ordinary Zimbabwean?
They are facing a food crisis, unattended human rights violations and the undermining of their judiciary. People are assaulted and killed with impunity – what message are we sending to them?”
The Amnesty International chief said at the end of her six-day visit to Zimbabwe last Thursday that the the new unity government had made too little progress in tackling human rights violations and said that Mugabe’s party and security forces still regarded the use of violence as “a legitimate tool to crush political opponents.”
The report examined politically-motivated violations before, during, and after the March presidential election and the subsequent sham June 27 run off vote which returned Mugabe to power and the continuing rights violations to date.
There was no political will to address past rights abuses and there was also no commitment to fulfilling pledges made in the global political agreement.
It alleged that violations were primarily committed by members of State-sponsored militia who operated with the consent of the State, and also by State security forces.
It said the authorities in Zimbabwe had systematically failed to bring those responsible for serious violations to justice despite the cries of victims noted countrywide during Khan’s consultations and implicit guarantees of justice for the wronged in the GPA.
President Mugabe’s party has reacted furiously to the report and rejected allegations from Amnesty International about continuing human rights violations in Zimbabwe.
Vice President Joie Mujuru said national reconciliation was going ahead in Zimbabwe and there was no need for outside interference.
“Some of us have already started talking to our people,” Mujuru said. “We love our people to be together. Being Zimbabweans, our culture does not allow noisy people.”
The official Herald newspaper criticized the report as “one-sided” and state radio said it was “not worth the paper it is written on.”
But Amnesty noted the previous use of presidential amnesties, clemencies and indemnities, prevented investigations into human rights violations.
An example of the use of amnesties was a recent clemency order proclaimed by Mugabe. This gave indemnity to anyone who committed politically motivated crimes in the blood-soaked vote last year.
The indemnity included rape, murder and fraud and grievous bodily harm – the category of crime that torture falls under.
To facilitate impunity, the State denied involvement with the militia, even though the militia had often been transported and supported by the police, the report charged.
There was also harassment of policemen who were trying to carry out their duties properly.
If a policeman investigated allegations against certain militia he would find himself transferred to a rural area or relegated to the “Commissioners pool” where he will have no desk and no duties.
NGOs have stopped trying to report rapes because the policemen don’t want to investigate.
Zimbabwe was in clear violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which says states have a duty to bring to justice those within their jurisdiction who are responsible for human rights violations.
Amnesty recommended that Zimbabwe ratify the United Nations Convention Against Torture, allow a thorough impartial investigation into allegations of human rights violations, make sure the police abide by international human rights standards, and that an independent police monitoring mechanism be created.
Laws not conforming to international human rights standards should be repealed or amended, and further international pressure should be applied on the Zimbabwean authorities to allow the United Nations Special Rapporteurs on torture and on the independence of judges and lawyers to take action.
It also encouraged more visits by bodies like the Southern African Development Community.
The report had been presented to the Zimbabwe government amid fierce protests. Its contents have been concealed by the State press.
However, Mugabe remains adamant that there are no human rights violations in Zimbabwe.
Mugabe has said that the human rights that Zimbabweans were enjoying today were as a result of the liberation war and not the work of Western-funded non-governmental-organisations, which now flaunt about rights issues.
He said: “We are the custodians of these rights we brought at a cost”.
Zimbabweans had fought against racial injustice and many other forms of discrimination which often led to persecutions and deaths of the freedom fighters, he said.
