The United Nations on Thursday expressed a ”profound sense of dismay” over statements by Zimbabwean leaders, including President Robert Mugabe, which appeared to condone police assaults on trade union officials.
Mugabe was quoted by state media earlier this week as saying Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Union (ZCTU) leaders had defied authority by trying to stage a banned protest over wages and deserved the beatings they reportedly got in police custody.
A Harare magistrate has ordered a probe into charges by ZCTU lawyers that a dozen unionists were tortured and ”excessively and brutally” assaulted in detention after police stopped their September 13 demonstration.
Mugabe, who was on his way home from the UN General Assembly in New York said during a stopover in Cairo that ”the police were right in dealing sternly with the ZCTU leaders”.
The Zimbabwean leader added ”some people are now crying foul that they were assaulted, yes, you get a beating. When the police say move, move.”
On Thursday the UN Country Team (UNCT) in Zimbabwe said it had noted ”with a profound sense of dismay” statements by the Zimbabwean authorities ”which might be interpreted as condoning the use of force and torture to deal with peaceful demonstrations by its citizens”.
”The UNCT calls upon the government, and specifically the country’s uniformed forces, to exercise restraint in their handling of such demonstrations, and to create an atmosphere in which Zimbabweans may freely exercise their constitutionally enshrined freedoms,” it said in a statement.
The government’s crackdown on the union leaders has been condemned by several international rights groups.
Mugabe said the ZCTU protests were a publicity stunt to get the attention of the media and the West and was part of what he called a futile campaign to oust his government.
Mugabe has in the past also accused some UN agencies of being used by his Western critics to pursue such an agenda.
Critics say police have applied tough security laws on Mugabe’s opponents — real and perceived — as the Southern African country suffers a deepening economic crisis that is widely blamed on his government’s mismanagement.
Mugabe denies misruling the country and says chronic food, fuel and foreign currency shortages as well as the world’s highest inflation rate have largely resulted from a Western sabotage campaign that stems from the seizure of white-owned farms for redistribution to blacks. — Reuters