President Robert Mugabe opened Zimbabwe’s Parliament on Tuesday with plans to push through laws that will allow him to appoint his successor without an election, and force businesses to give a controlling stake to ruling party loyalists and others chosen by the government.
Mugabe said he would not retreat from his order for all shops to cut prices by at least half to try to curb hyperinflation. Officially, inflation stands at 4 500% but some economists put it at five times that. The cuts caused a short-term shopping spree but then brought shortages as shops could not afford to restock and sell at a loss.
He plans to push through a Bill that will consolidate presidential and parliamentary elections, and require only a vote in parliament to replace a president who resigns between elections. He also plans a law that will require all businesses to be at least 51% Zimbabwean owned and managed.
Between a rock and a hard place
Meanwhile, an Amnesty International report says Zimbabwean women activists fighting the political and economic crises ravaging their country are suffering increasing violence and repression.
”Women in Zimbabwe are demanding respect and protection for their own human rights and the rights of members of their communities — often in the face of severe repression, including arbitrary arrest and torture,” said Amnesty’s secretary general Irene Khan in a foreword to the 42-page report.
Women quoted in the survey Zimbabwe — between a rock and a hard place — women rights defenders at risk detailed how they had been beaten and denied food while in the custody the security services.
The report also revealed how women were trying to raise extra money on the black market at the risk of arrest.
”In every location visited by the organisation, women were desperately trying to sell their goods, while at the same time trying to avoid being arrested and having their goods confiscated by police,” read the report.
According to the report, women anti-government activists were effectively prevented from buying the maize as a result of discriminatory distribution of the food staple by politicians trying to silence their critics.
”In rural areas local ruling party officials have denied woman human rights defenders access to maize distributed by the government-owned Grain Marketing Board as a punishment for criticising the government.”
Women have often been the victims of police brutality at demonstrations and in police custody.
”Detained women human rights offenders have been subjected to sexist verbal attacks, and denied access to food, medical care and access to lawyers. Some have been severely beaten while in police custody, in some instances amounting to torture,” read the report.
The report cited the case of 64-year-old opposition Movement for Democratic Change member Sekai Holland who was one of the people arrested during a police crackdown on a prayer meeting in March.
Holland sustained serious injuries all over her body and claims to have been tortured by police in custody.
Amnesty International appealed to the international community to ”publicly express concern about the government of Zimbabwe’s failure to prevent, prosecute and punish human rights violations”.
The report also called for South African President Thabo Mbeki, appointed to mediate in the Zimbabwe crisis, to ensure an immediate end to harassment, intimidation, arbitrary arrest and torture of human rights defenders.
”At their next summit meeting in Zambia in August 2007, SADC [Southern African Development Community] leaders should insist that President Mugabe immediately stop the intimidation, ill-treatment, torture and harassment of critics of government policies,” said Khan. – Sapa-AFP, Guardian