Iden Wetherell
A STRUGGLE is looming for custody of a report documenting widespread human rights abuses by Zimbabwean security forces in the 1980s.
Details of the report – handed to President Robert Mugabe in March – were carried in the Mail & Guardian last week. It reveals a bloody campaign of terror unleashed by the army’s North Korean-trained Fifth Brigade in Matabeleland against counter-insurgents loyal to Mugabe’s long-time rival, Joshua Nkomo, now vice-president.
While Zimbabwe’s Catholic bishops are battling to keep a lid on the gruesome findings of their own Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace, the report’s co- authors, the Legal Resources Foundation, an independent advisory service, want it published without further delay. In particular they want to publicise the report’s recommendations for a reconciliation trust to channel aid to the troubled region.
But the bishops have the report, ironically entitled Breaking the Silence, under lock and key and are refusing to release it before Mugabe has commented. Foundation officials privately suggest this strategy is designed to sweep the whole matter under the carpet, given the intimate relations that now exist between the president and the Catholic hierarchy.
Nkomo is equally anxious to suppress the report. His position depends upon a 1987 pact with Mugabe which allows his followers a share of state power.
Catholic commission insiders say Nkomo recently stormed into their offices demanding that all copies of the report be handed over to him. He warned staff that publication could jeopardise the nation’s unity. They refused to comply.
The proposed reconciliation trust, Uxolelwano in Ndebele, representing the government, the Catholic commission, the foundation and affected communities, would seek funding for projects such as scholarships, clinics and counselling services. Modelled on a similar scheme set up in Cape Town for the KTC squatter camp which had suffered state-sponsored communal violence, its advocates hope to source US$68-million in government and donor support.
Foundation insiders said this week that if the bishops persist with their refusal to release the report, the foundation may publish it themselves.
The two organisations put out a joint statement on Tuesday regretting publication in the media of extracts from the report which omitted any mention of the trust proposal. The Catholic commission denies any rift with the foundation. There had been differences of approach between the authors, one church source conceded, but they now had “a common view”.
Commission legal officer Liz Feltoe is hopeful the bishops will get a reply from Mugabe next week. “The bishops are confident they will get a response,” she says. Others are less optimistic. Mugabe has in the past proved obdurate, refusing to apologise for what happened in Matabeleland or to offer compensation.
He has other worries, including allegations of sleaze in state tender awards and the threat of being eclipsed by South Africa in the Zaire talks. “He will try and ride out the storm,” said a foundation official.
The need for transparency is underlined in the report itself which describes the killings at the notorious Bhalagwe camp as comparable with the genocide carried out by the Nazis and Cambodian tyrant Pol Pot.
Professor Welshman Ncube, of the University of Zimbabwe’s law faculty, said the recommendation for a reconciliation trust was central. “To heal the wounds victims need to be acknowledged, requiring a mechanism whereby survivors and victims’ families can receive state assistance.” Referring to those perpetrators of violence who today occupy key posts in the government, armed forces and police, Ncube said: “Mass murderers should not be entrusted with responsibility . especially when tasked with protecting human rights.”