PRESS STATEMENT
24 June 2009
      

VICTIMS OF POLITICAL VIOLENCE PURSUE CIVIL ACTION AS JUSTICE CONTINUES TO BE DENIED

On 17 June 2009 Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) filed civil claims on behalf of Plaintiff’s who suffered loss of their property, including livestock, during the violence that ensured over the 2008 Harmonised elections. The Plaintiff’s are claiming compensation for the loss of their property forcefully and unlawfully taken off them by Zanu PF supporters as fine and punishment for allegedly supporting and voting for the opposition MDC during the 2008 Harmonised elections. Meanwhile at least thirteen (13) people have been granted orders directing that they be compensated for the loss of their property by those that had inflicted such loss during the political violence of the 2008 Harmonised elections.

ZLHR is aware that following the results of the March 2008 elections and in the wake of a second presidential elections there was an outbreak of violence throughout the country, which violence saw “terror bases” being set up by Zanu Pf militia, and from which bases any persons suspected of having voted for the MDC, thus having “sold out the country” were abducted to, beaten, tortured and murdered. It is to such bases that many were forced, under acts of violence, to give up their livestock and other food stuff such as grain, which property was used to sustain and maintain these “terror bases”. At one such base, called ‘Chamagonahapana’ in Ward 2, Katerere, Nyanga North many residents of Ward 2 and surrounding areas were beaten and ordered to give up their goats, chicken, maize crop to feed the very same people that unleashed violence against them. Reports that had at the time been made to the police were simply ignored as victims’ cries for help from the law enforcement agents were ignored.

Following the signing of the Inter Part Agreement in September 2008 and the formation of the inclusive government in February 2009 attempts to reconcile between perpetrators and victims of political violence have been undermined by the arrest and malicious prosecution of the same victims whom the law had failed to protect when their property was forced off them during the 2008 electoral violence. In several of these criminal cases were MDC supporters now face charges that include armed robbery and extortion, Magistrates have refused to preside over their matters, citing undue external interference, while prosecutors have acknowledged orders from above” to deny bail at all costs. Ironically in one case involving as many as 80 MDC supporters charged with extortion, several Zanu PF supporters offered to present themselves before the court as witnesses to the fact that they had peacefully engaged with the MDC supporters as a community in process of reconciliation wherein those that had lost their property had the same or its value returned and they in turn forgave those that had wronged them. In Murambinda more people were arrested and detained after they had sought to use traditional mechanisms, which saw the return of stolen property, to reconcile within their communities.

ZLHR is concerned that the police and some judicial officers have been manipulated to disregard due process and the rule of law in efforts to maliciously prosecute victims of political violence who peacefully seek to recover their property and indeed reconcile with their aggressors. Meanwhile, despite calls to reconcile, to “forgive and forget”, by representatives of the new government no real and practical steps have been taken to address the festering sense of injustice and disillusionment still being felt by those who had their rights, including the right to property, grossly violated during 2008 electoral and political violence.

ZLHR calls upon the new government, through the Ministry of National Healing Reconciliation and Integration, to intervene, take control and undertake real processes of reconciliation to achieve real peace and stability. Such process cannot include the malicious arrest, detention and prosecution of the very people who were victims of political violence, whom the new government is urging to reconcile with the very perpetrators now used by the state as witness to prosecute their victims.

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