Zimbabwe has joined the grim club of police states, writes Mercedes Sayagues
Zimbabwe’s government is showing its true colours, and the hue is the olive green of a military dictatorship. In the past two weeks, basic democratic principles have been crudely disregarded: the military declared itself above the law and institutional torture reared its ugly head. The state has thrown away its camouflage of respect for human rights.
First came the illegal arrest by military police of editor Mark Chavunduka on January 12, following a story in The Standard about an alleged foiled coup by 23 army officers. Under Zimbabwean law, the military has no powers to detain civilians, nor to hold them incommunicado, as Chavunduka was for seven days. This was followed by blatant contempt of court when the military ignored a court order for Chavunduka’s immediate and unconditional release.
Ray Choto, the journalist who wrote the story, turned himself over to the police on January 19 under an informal arrangement brokered by The Standard’s lawyer that both journalists would remain in police custody and appear in court the following day. Instead, both men were handed over to the military police and tortured.
According to Amnesty International, besides being beaten with fists, rubber sticks and wooden planks, the men were “given electric shocks all over the body, including the genitals … [and] had their heads wrapped in plastic bags and submerged in a water tank”. The interrogators wanted to know their sources for the story and their alleged links to South African intelligence.
Chavunduka and Choto say they did not reveal their sources and they stand by the story.
Minister of Defence Moven Mahachi first denied the coup and then denied the torture: “They must have scratched themselves.” But the bruised and swollen feet and hands of Choto say otherwise. Doctors’ reports confirm the torture.
The stakes are high for Chavunduka and Choto. Their interrogators warned them not to mention the torture, and Zimbabwe has a history of disappearances and strange car accidents. “I don’t think Mark and I will ever be fully free men in this country,” said Choto after his release.
Choto and Chavunduka appeared in court on January 21. They were remanded until February 22, with bail set at Z$10 000 each. Both men were charged under Section 50.2 of the colonial Law and Order (Maintenance) Act with publishing a false report “likely to cause fear, alarm and despondency among the public”.
The Standard’s managing director, Clive Wilson, was arrested on January 22 and questioned for three hours about the journalists’ sources. He spent the weekend in a police cell, but was released after the attorney general’s office deemed the evidence insufficient to press charges.
Zimbabwe has now openly joined the grim club of police states where the rule of law and press freedom are not respected. The country’s growing militarisation is alarming. In the past months, President Robert Mugabe has been placing top army officials in key positions.
Stenciled on the tortured bodies of Chavunduka and Choto, the army sent a clear message: we have the power and we are not accountable.
“The judge cannot order us. We will move at our own pace,” said Secretary of Defence Job Wahbira when the order to release Chavunduka was served.
The judiciary finds itself, in the words of human rights lawyer Tendai Biti, “emasculated”. The judiciary has a proud history of independence, but for one reason or other, bungling at the high court delayed the issuing of a contempt of court order against Wahbira.
“There were some ducking and diving judges,” says The Independent editor Trevor Ncube. Judge Paddington Garwe, for example, refused to hear the case, alleging he had malaria.
Zimbabwe’s lively independent press is under threat. Last weekend, Minister of Home Affairs Dumiso Dabengwa warned that stringent measures would follow: “I will not sit idle and do nothing while the security of the army is being undermined by a few misinformed individuals who have their own hidden agendas.”
He said the government had reverted to the Law and Order (Maintenance) Act “to protect the security of the country”. The Act was the main repressive legal instrument used by the Rhodesian regime against black liberation activists. Today, the former guerrillas turned ministers unleash it on black citizens.
The economy, reeling under spiralling inflation and a weak dollar, is not helped by these events. “There is no restoring of international confidence and investment if these acts do not stop, if Zimbabwe does not respect the law,” says trade union leader Morgan Tsvangirai.
Paradoxically, as the regime loses its grip on society, it tightens control. On Monday, the government-owned The Herald reported that ministers were concerned about “the unwillingness of civil servants to take orders from the ruling party”. Jobs in the administration should go to party members. Councils should be able to dismiss employees who do not toe the party line. Government operations must be “closely monitored by the party if it is to remain in power”.
“The regime will do anything, legally or extra-legally, to perpetuate itself,” says lawyer Tendai Biti. “They don’t care about the economy, democracy or anything except to hold on to power.”
The good news, however, was the swift response of concerned groups, who rallied in resistance. Heeding a call by the National Constitutional Assembly, a wide alliance of NGOs, churches and trade unions, 2 000 people marched through downtown Harare, demanding Chavunduka’s release. Dozens of picketers with placards against military rule gathered outside The Standard offices and the court.
On Tuesday, 300 lawyers and activists marched from the high court to Parliament to show “zero tolerance for any erosion of human rights”. They were tear-gassed by riot police.
The Zimbabwe Union of Journalists, led by its secretary general, Basildon Peta, organised international and local protests.
Has the regime succeeded in its intention to frighten journalists and their sources? Says Ncube: “In the short term, it may work. In the long term, it fortifies our resolve to continue. The best thing was the sunshine that shone on the bloodstained walls of Ray and Mark’s torture chamber. The government has been exposed.”
However, most people remain ignorant of the constitutional crisis taking place. The government’s tight control of the airwaves ensured a news blackout on radio and TV.
Where was Mugabe during all this? Not one comment has been heard from him over these events. Nor has he replied to a letter of protest sent to him by the high court judges.
Says Amnesty International: “Mugabe must be held accountable for failing to ensure that the rule of law in Zimbabwe is not undermined by his own ministers and the nation’s military officials.”
Mercedes Sayagues was among a group of journalists who set up the first weekly paper in opposition to the military dictatorship in Uruguay in 1980. She has reported on military rule in Chile and Argentina, and in her own country, Uruguay
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