Horror tales of brutal campaigns by supporters of the ruling Zanu-PF party, which saw over 200 opposition supporters die in state-sponsored crackdowns in 2000 during the genesis of Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe’s seizure of farms, are being laid bare before a court seven years later.
Seven Zanu-PF activists face the hangman’s noose if convicted for murder.
At the time, Mugabe was losing his grip on power and his ruling party organised a countrywide campaign against opposition supporters.
Terror camps were set up, scores of people were tortured and killed and women were raped and assaulted, prompting the international community to raise concerns over human rights violations in Zimbabwe.
The cases had been gathering dust in the Attorney General’s (AG) office until opposition legislators in parliament pressured the government to act.
”It became too difficult to ignore the dockets,” says a former prosecutor in the AG’s office.
The independence of the judiciary, however, is again under spotlight given the political sensitivity of the case.
Mugabe granted amnesty to politically motivated violence cases in 2001, but that did not apply to murder and rape.
The violence in question, which occurred in Mudzi, was sanctioned by the local political leadership with the full blessing of its leader, Mugabe, who accused the opposition of fanning violence.
As testimonies kicked off last week, away from the glare of most media, Ephraim Musvota, in his mid-50s, broke down in court as he narrated the gruesome deaths of two opposition activists in the town just 150km east of Harare.
In the dock are also nurses who took part in grisly murders that were engineered on behalf of Zanu-PF in a terror campaign, the chilling accounts of which are finally finding time and space in a high court.
But the former prosecutor said that it is in the interests of the accused to implicate top government officials who sponsored the campaign, otherwise it would ”appear the government was frying small fish”.
”Justice delayed is justice denied,” says Professor Welshman Ncube, founding secretary general of the opposition Movement for Democratic change. ”It is sevens years now … [It has taken] almost a decade to bring the accused to court for crimes committed in the glare of the public eye,” he said.
”So many are still being shielded from political prosecution. When the Mugabe regime goes, the wrath of the law will catch up with them,” Ncube says, adding: ”Despite this matter being finally heard, justice delayed is better than nothing.”
But the reality is that political activists who broke the law with impunity under the false perception of political protection are now facing justice before the courts, as memories of the ugly past catch up with most of them.
”The sun doesn’t rot,” says Ncube. ”It’s an Ndebele proverb meaning ‘a crime doesn’t fade away’.”
In the dock are seven Zanu-PF activists who allegedly wreaked havoc in the party’s Mashonaland East stronghold, where two people died a gruesome death, scores were assaulted, teachers were forced to flee their schools and nurses were turned into agents of death.
This week witnesses broke down uncontrollably and the accused were stunned as they faced a justice system in motion, complete with tales of horror in which a nurse at a local clinic spearheaded a campaign that saw two people, a father and his son, die horrible deaths in May 2000.
”There is an increasing sense of [feeling betrayed] on the part of the accused,” says one of the state witnesses.
”They felt they were going to be protected — [however] ngozi [an avenging spirit who haunts the accused’s families] is there to ensure justice, because our traditional structures did not provide for a proper justice system where evidence was properly led as per the law,” he said.
In the high court, it was unclear whether some of the accused’s lawyers were appearing for free or were being bankrolled by the Zanu-PF.
A statement recorded by the state painted a picture of a well-coordinated political campaign that traversed the corners of Mashonaland East province, headhunting opposition supporters, committing murders and beating some to a pulp.
In papers before the court, the state indicated the ”gang apprehended all persons perceived to be members of the opposition parties and assaulted them.
”The accused persons connived and conspired to assault and punish all members of political parties opposed to Zanu-PF in the Mudzi area.”