COLIN MCCLELLAND, Luanda | Friday
HUMAN rights gained ground in several southern African countries in the past year, an annual report by New York-based Human Rights Watch said this week.
The advocacy group’s report suggested the region’s move to democracy looked sustainable and that globalisation and Internet communication were major forces behind the changes.
”To the degree that developments mirrored a change in the public’s state of mind, and a perception that they could influence the composition of a government and its policies, it appeared that the human rights advances would endure,” the report said.
Zimbabweans defeated a government-sponsored constitution in February, then in June only narrowly elected a ruling party, once thought unassailable, despite widespread violence and intimidation in the run-up to the polls.
”The phenomenal transition in Zimbabwe was the most dramatic illustration of a yearning for democracy and human rights and of the dogged determination of civil society actors to engineer and orchestrate reform,” the report said.
”They … pulled off a people-power revolution that achieved astonishing gains in a short span of time,” it said.
Zambia was noted for opening a World Bank meeting to human rights and civil society observers for the first time. But other abuses ”undermined the more meaningful economic reforms,” the report said.
Pretoria passed four acts required under South Africa’s 1996 constitution, including measures promoting equality and access to information.
But South Africa remained racked by ”shockingly high” crime rates. ”Violence against women, including sexual violence, remained a very serious problem,” the report said.
South Africa had one the world’s highest incarceration rates with an estimated 416 inmates per 100000 citizens. The prison system suffered from prisoner-on-prisoner rape and overcrowding. In April it held 170000 inmates in accommodation for 100000.
The report had high marks for Mozambique.
”Despite being pummelled by cyclone-driven floods…and severe tensions spawned by the 1999 December presidential and parliamentary elections, Mozambique was once again on its feet with the fastest-growing economy in the world.”
Mozambique’s Portuguese colonial cousin, Angola, has not fared as well. The bulk of its human rights abuses centred around the 25-year civil war between Luanda and the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA). – Reuters
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