”Demonstrations here never last more than 10 minutes before the police move in,” photojournalist Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi remarks casually.
It is another misleadingly tranquil day in Zimbabwe’s capital city, Harare, where Mukwazhi and two colleagues are keeping tabs on a group advocating for a new constitution, the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA). Members of the organisation are due to march to parliament with placards, agitating for a new constitution as the starting point to resolving the political gridlock in the country.
However, Mukwazhi’s comments turns out to be an understatement. Even before the demonstration begins, it is quashed. Plainclothes police officers sneak up on anyone wearing an NCA shirt and throw them into waiting vehicles.
Mukwazhi and the two other freelance photojournalists are bungled together with the NCA demonstrators within seconds of snapping pictures of NCA chairman Lovemore Madhuku who, with a small group of activists, tries to unfurl a banner.
Altogether, 102 NCA activists are arrested. Together with the three photojournalists they spend 24 hours in custody charged with ”engaging in conduct likely to breach the peace”. This is an offence under an all-encompassing law from the country’s colonial past, the Miscellaneous Offences Act.
Freedom only comes when they pay admission of guilt fines, even though they all know they have committed no crime. ”We paid in protest, not paying the fine would have meant staying in prison,” their lawyer, Alec Muchadehama says.
Once released Mukwazhi seeks legal action to have the admission of guilt stuck down. Having three such admissions could cost any journalist his hard-to-get official accreditation card as it is tantamount to having a criminal record.
While the government of President Robert Mugabe digs it’s heels in, the right to peaceful demonstration is one less freedom Zimbabweans have.
Engaging in a public protest is like waiving a red flag in front of the police who have a reservoir of laws to justify a clampdown. The main law against gatherings is the Public Order and Security Act (Posa), which replaced another draconian colonial legislation, the Law and Order (Maintenance) Act.
Since its enactment in January 2002, Posa has been used to target opposition supporters, independent media and human rights activities. It restricts their right to criticise the government, engage in or organise acts of peaceful civil disobedience.
On October 9, a demonstration by the country’s powerful labour organisation, the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU), was also foiled before it began. Fifty-five ZCTU members who had planned to speak out against high taxation and the cost of living were arrested. Three of them were seriously assaulted by the police.
Members of the group were cautioned and released. But charges might be pressed later if the police decide to do so. However, the ZCTU remains unintimidated. It has planned more demonstrations against high taxation and inflation until Zimbabwe’s budget is presented next month.
It’s president, Lovemore Matombo, was among those detained. He says the most distasteful irony was finding himself in the same cell that he occupied for 35 days in 1975 for resisting colonial injustice. ”You really feel quite depressed purely because we are an independent country and are supposed to be democratic enough to allow the basic freedoms to flow in the normal way,” he says.
The union leader says what disturbed him further was that they were hassled merely for protesting against the well-known issue of taxation. For years Zimbabweans, who are among some of the most heavily taxed people in the world, have unsuccessfully sought tax relief from the government.
Three days after the ZCTU protest, a newly-formed anti-globalisation coalition, the Zimbabwe Social Forum which is affiliated to the World Social Forum, was denied permission for a peaceful march.
”Because of the legislation and the political environment in Zimbabwe, it had to be a peace rally instead,” said one of the organizers, Thomas Deve. Matombo says the government’s intolerance for civil disobedience is purely a matter of clinging to power despite all odds.
The government stands accused of plunging the country into it’s worst economic crisis ever, with inflation at over 500%, unemployment at 70% and the local currency being worth a little more than the paper on which it is printed.
Suppressing all forms of protest is the method of choice in perpetuating control over a very frustrated population.
At the University of Zimbabwe, previously the country’s melting pot of protest, many students’ rooms still do not have doors since soldiers knocked them down during the ”final push” mass action organised by the opposition in June to force Mugabe to the negotiating table.
Talks with the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) have been on and off. To date no headway has been made.
Over the weekend at it’s annual general meeting, the NCA warned members who dare to speak out to expect a lot more State repression. ”As we continue in our conviction towards the established of sustainable democracy in Zimbabwe, more arrests, torture, closure and even worse forms of oppression, suppression and repression are certain to come our way,” Matombo said. – IPS