Two MDC activists, Tungamirai Madzokere and Last Maengahama, have just been freed after spending eight years in prison on a murder charge of a Police Officer. The two were not saving a jail sentence because they were never convicted of the crime, at least not of the murder.
In Zimbabwe, being a political activist opposed to the Zanu
PF regime is a serious crime for which many have been charged and punished and
even summarily executed! This case was one such case.
“They beat him up to
such an extent that they fractured a bone on his arm,” argued Beatrice Mtetwa,
a human rights lawyer. When the Police arrest Madzokere they assaulted him and
broke his wrist – assault a common occurrence.
“The court ordered that there be an investigation on that,
but we all know that nothing came out of those investigations. We know that not
even a single sentence was written by the trial judge to deal with that.
“The time that these political activists spent in custody is
a time that was unnecessary.
“The trial judge refused them bail on the basis that they
had a strong case as the state had eye-witnesses, but during trial, the
eyewitnesses disappeared and the Inspector who had been claiming that they had
eye-witnesses started talking about informers who had no names, no identities
and were never called.
“So, it’s obvious that there never were any eye-witnesses in
the first instance.”
She had her crosswire on the individual Police Officer whom she
wanted to be sued in their own individual capacity.
“Why should he (Police Officer) not be personally liable for
lying in court for whatever personal reasons if he was put up to it, let him
then go and claim those damages from those other people…”
Eight years in jail for a crime you never committed!
The real reason the two MDC activists were locked up is
because they had dared to exercise their right to think freely and to demand a
meaningful say in the governance of the country. As far as Zanu PF is concerned
anyone who does that is a Ventriloquist Dummy vocalising the regime change
agenda of their foreign masters. They are guilty of high treason and of all
trumped up charges brought up against them to facilitate the arrest and
punishment!
Political activists and critics of the Zanu PF regime are
criminals, period. The Zanu PF ruling elite are the highest court in the land
and their judgement is final; there is no appeal!
Former Police Commissioner, Augustine Chihuru’s PhD thesis
was on the challenges of policing in a country awash with regime change criminals.
His orders to his men and women were clear, they must harass, beat and even
kill these regime change puppets at every turn.
Suing the individual Police Officer for what we all
acknowledge is institutionalised rot in the Police, judiciary and in every
facet of Zimbabwe society is better than doing nothing, I would readily admit
that. Will it change anything? Not really, particularly when the captured
judiciary will kick most of such lawsuits into the prickly pear thicket to rot.
Suing the individual Police Officer will make as much
difference as a child emptying the sea into the pit scooped in the sand! The
solution to Zanu PF misrule is simple but not that simple!
There have been many, many golden opportunities to end the
Zanu PF dictatorship and we, the people of Zimbabwe, have wasted them. One such
golden opportunity was during the 2008 to 2013 GNU when MDC leaders had the
opportunity to implement the democratic reforms that would have freed the
Police to do their work without fear or favour. Of course, MDC leaders sold-out
but where was civic society in all this? Why did we all say nothing?
I think suing the individual MDC leaders for selling out during
GNU on the court of public opinion would go a long way to end the Zanu PF
dictatorship. For one thing, it will shed the light on what the GNU was about
and, most important of all, why Zimbabweans must stop following these corrupt,
incompetent and sell-out MDC leaders blindly like sheep to the slaughter!
Right now, the country is being stampeded into yet another utterly
pointless 2023 elections. It is a well-documented fact that Zanu PF rigged the
2018 elections and that by participating Zimbabweans gave the vote rigging Zanu
PF legitimacy. Nothing, absolutely nothing, has been done to stop Zanu PF
rigging the coming elections. And the corrupt, incompetent and sell-out
opposition opportunists are the ones leading the stampede on the false promise
they will win the rigged elections!
One feels sorry for the ordinary people who are helpless to
put an end to this madness of rigged elections. The rural voters especially
have been reduced into nothing short of medieval serfs beholden to the
overbearing Zanu PF thugs, they will be corralled to attend party rallies, to
vote and thus once again give legitimacy to the vote rigging Zanu PF.
Zanu PF has already rigged the 2023 elections. The party has,
once again, denied the 3 million or so Zimbabweans in the diaspora the vote for
example. 5 million voted in the July 2018 elections. How can an election in
which 3 out of 8 are summarily denied the vote be anything but a farce! Why are
we, as a society, tolerating such nonsense?
The root cause of Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown and political
paralysis; we are stuck with a corrupt, incompetent and murderous ruling party
and an equally corrupt, incompetent and utterly useless opposition as the
alternative; is decades of bad governance. Bad governance is, per se, a
man-made problem and therefore within our power as the citizens to solve. So
far Zimbabweans have been as helpless as child in stopping the rot in our
country. All they need is to be educated on what their rights are and how to
hold those in positions of power and authority to account.
Suing the individual Police Officer for zealous
lawlessness will not empty the sea of Zanu PF injustice. Sue the regime for denying
3 million Zimbabweans the vote, for failing to produce a verified voters’ roll,
etc., etc. and you will end the curse of rigged elections and deliver a sea
change of freedom, justice and hope in Zimbabwe!
11 comments:
We can sue these Police Officers for their part in the lawless that rules the roost in our country but that will not stop those issuing the orders. Besides the captured judiciary will make sure these cases are never resolved. Even if there is compensation; most of these Police Officers will not pay, they are be as poor as a church mouse!
@ Shumba
“Zimbabwe's problems emanate more from a dysfunctional social accountability system rather than politics and economics. If we craft a social contract, we will emerge stronger from this crisis and be successful again.
The politicians and their supporters may insist that it is a political crisis requiring political reforms, but our attempts to deal with it politically have not yielded much.
Ordinary citizens want food on the table and an end to impunity by a system rooted in corruption and high levels of unaccountability. Let us end the confusion!”
You are spot on there “If we craft a social contract, we will emerge stronger from this crisis and be successful again!” The truth is we had the golden opportunity to craft such a social contract during the the 2008 to 2013 GNU when the politicians were supposed to implement the democratic reform designed to dismantle the corrupt and dysfunctional Zanu PF dictatorship. They failed to implement even one reform in five years.
You are also 100% correct, elections in Zimbabwe have resolved nothing because we are repeating the same foolishness. We know Zanu PF will rig the elections and have the same corrupt and incompetent buffoon in power. Why we keep participating in such a flawed and illegal process just to give the vote rigging Zanu PF legitimacy and the few opposition opportunists a seat on the gravy train beggars belief.
After 41 years of rigged elections we do not even have the common sense to see the sheer stupidity of it all!
@ Mbofana
“What gripped my attention regarding this news article was not so much the Pius Ncube issue per se, but the "professional" history of the late state security agent - as he was also reported to have been seriously involved with the 1980s Gukurahundi sadistic and savage Genocide, in which over 20,000 unarmed and innocent men, women, and children, of the Matebeleland and Midlands provinces, were mercilessly massacred in cold blood, by the ruthless Zimbabwe regime.
The news report alleged that a family member of the late operative had pointed out that this "successful" suicide had been after two other failed attempts at taking his own life, which the family member attributed to "spirits", due to the nature of his work, and "one guesses they did terrible things there".”
Zimbabwe has had more than her fair share of sell-outs who would happily sell their own mother for a price and boast they had a mother to sell. As a nation we have been very slow off the mark in condemning this cold-hearted indifference to other people’s suffering even one of our own.
Mugabe and now Mnangagwa has never had any problem recruiting even the most respectable individuals to do their dirty work. Look at Professor Mthuli Ncube and Kirsty Coventry, of course they know Mnangagwa blatantly rigged the July 2018 elections but when the dictator waved the prestigious ministerial job offer in their faces they forgot all about the rigged elections.
Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC friends sold out on implementing the reforms for 5 years when Mugabe offered them the bribe of the trappings of high office.
TOP human rights lawyer, Beatrice Mtetwa says police officers who take the law into their own hands through visiting forms of brutalities on suspects or turn some incidents into political cases, must be sued in their own capacity for the transgressions
That is an interesting proposition but how many of those cases will ever pursued to their logical conclusion. This case has taken eight years with the accused forced to languish in jail although it was clear from the word go the state had no evidence justify their arrest much less detention in jail. Even if the civil case against the individual Police Officer result in a conviction and awarding of compensation, what will one get from some of these monkeys? They have nothing!
Zimbabweans must start thinking outside the box! How about suing the Zanu PF regime for rigging the elections? Suing the corrupt and incompetent opposition opportunists for failing to implement the reforms and dragging the people into flawed and utterly pointless elections.
Friedrich Naumann Foundation programmes manager Fungisai Sithole said their investigations had shown that out of approximately six million students that enrol at learning institutions annually in the country, about 840 000 had dropped of school.
Sithole said Matabeleland South province was the worst affected, with a 30% school dropout rate, and called on the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Primary Education to address the issue.
"The national average of school dropouts is at 15%, but Matabeleland South doubles the national average and so we need to do more and try to address the issue of school dropouts as a country," Sithole said
Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe president Takavafira Zhou confirmed Sithole's assertions.
"Indeed, the school dropout rate is high, but our estimates are around 500 000. It is not only Matabeleland that is the worst affected, but most borderland areas are in trouble.
"Education has lost its value, the economy is in tatters and students no longer see the difference between those that have made it and those that haven't, and, therefore, most students are dropping out to pursue gold mining and other menial jobs in neighbouring countries."
So 1 in 6 students are dropping out and those who soldier on to the end of the year only 3% in the best performing rural school pass with many schools posting 0% pass rate. And yet the Zanu PF regimes still continues wittering about the country making economic progress and on target to pull itself out of one of the poorest countries in the world to suddenly become an upper middle income nation by 2030.
We are fast becoming a nation of village idiots and we expect the village idiots to be very productive and innovative and use their ignorance to pull the nation out of the economic and political mess the country is in! This is just daydreaming.
MDC Alliance leader President Nelson Chamisa has said unity is the key to victory.
This is just plain foolish repeated over and over again in the hope it will gain value by repetition! Morgan Tsvangirai managed to bring three of the major MDC factions plus two other smaller parties into his “Big Tent” opposition alliance to form the MDC Alliance before the 2018 elections. The nation was assured the alliance would win the rigged elections. That did not happen!
Professor Jonathan Moyo has revealed some of the blatant vote rigging used by Zanu PF.
If “Unity is the key to victory!” then why did MDC A fail to win the 2018 elections?
We need to take time out and sort out all these vote rigging problems before continuing in this madness of trying to win rigged elections.
The truth is Chamisa and his MDC A friends know Zanu PF is rigging the elections and will win and they are participating for the same of the few gravy train seats Zanu PF gives away as bait. These opposition opportunists will not admit it is greed that is stopping them doing the obvious thing – demand reforms and refuse to participate in a flawed, fraudulent and utterly meaningless electoral process.
Since Chamisa and company will never boycott these flawed elections because of greed, it is for us the ordinary Zimbabweans to boycott these elections!
2023 polls a race between two horses
by Pardon Maguta
There are real chances that Chamisa might against all odds cruise to victory in 2023. The "virgin votes" count is likely to tip the scales in his favour. The majority of the 2023 voters have nothing to lose by voting for him.
This is rubbish! Where there no “virgin voters” in 2018 ; why did they fail to propel Chamisa to victory then?
Zanu PF and its apologists’ mission is to con MDC and the gullible Zimbabwe public into believing MDC can win rigged elections. The 2008 elections were a water shed election in that Zanu PF revealed just how vast and varied its vote rigging ability was. Professor Jonathan Moyo’s Excelgate: How Zimbabwe’s 2018 Presidential Election Was Stolen reminded us of that very point.
SADC leaders begged Tsvangirai and his MDC friend no to participate in the elections without first implementing the reforms. Sadly their advice has fallen on deaf ears.
It is insane to participate in flawed and illegal elections only to give the vote rigging Zanu PF legitimacy. Zanu PF and its team of apologists want the legitimacy and hence all these articles designed to convince the public there is a chance of winning rigged elections!
@ Prisca Ncube
“Someone is fooling Chamisa once more. There are no reforms on the ground. How is Chamisa going to win elections in 2023. These elections are a done deal. Malaba is needed in this because of the coming elections that will be cooked to favour Zanu. Musafurire chikomana ichi. Chamisa gets excitable about such information that are no realistic on the ground. He will not win because people did not vote for him but will lose because these elections are already determined.”
I totally agree! Mnangagwa has already started to mobilise the war veterans, train the green bombers and to bribe the Chiefs and other traditional leaders to make sure the rural voters, 60% of the voters, remain under Zanu PF control. He has denied 3 million voters in the diaspora the vote, compare with the 5 million who voted in July 2018. All these measures and more give Zanu PF the electoral advantage long before the first ballot is cast!
Zanu PF gives away a few gravy train seats to entice the opposition to participate; these are what Chamisa is fighting for and the bragging rights to being Zimbabwe’s main opposition party.
At the end of 2023 elections Zimbabwe will still have Zanu PF with 2/3 majority and the presidency and whether it will be Chamisa or Mwonzora who will the opposition leader is of little consequence in terms of the quality of government for the next five years.
After 41 years and counting of gross mismanagement, rampant corruption and rank lawlessness that have left the country in economic ruins and millions living in abject poverty Zimbabweans are hurting for end to the curse of rigged elections and bad governance. To give this up for the sake of Chamisa/Mwonzora bragging rights is foolishness personified!
@ Natasha Meyer
“saka iwe ukutiiii? nekuti zanu will not reform”
Natasha, put yourself in Mnangagwa’s shoes (hold your nose!) Would you implement any reforms when you know that Zanu PF will lose hands down any free, fair and credible elections? More so, when you also know that the opposition will participate for the sake of the few gravy train seats you give away as bait? Mnangagwa is dumb but not that stupid as to implement reforms unless he is forced to.
The related question you should ask is: why is Chamisa and company participating in elections they know have no chance of winning?
Answer: MDC leaders failed to implement even one reform during the GNU because they are corrupt and incompetent – Chamisa and company know it and so does Zanu PF but the majority of the Zimbabwe electorate do not know it. MDC leaders have given up getting the reforms implemented and to help them down that route Zanu PF is offering them a few gravy train seats to entice them to keep participating in flawed elections. MDC leaders have managed to convince the naïve and gullible electorate MDC can win rigged elections and so the circus of trying to win rigged elections was born.
Natasha, do you know that by participating in flawed and illegal elections Zimbabweans are giving the vote rigging Zanu PF legitimacy? You want free, fair and credible elections? Stop giving rigged elections legitimacy by participating trying to win rigged elections! That is not rocket science.
@ Abednico Mweembe Mweembe
“To us who are living among the poor majority in this country this story is just a repetition of what we hear daily from the poor masses. I am yet to hear a single of them who says he or she will vote for ED. In public transports and beer halls same song pple want change and that ED and Zanu must go. That is what we hear daily. Even in deep rural places same story Zanu must go. It is not Chamisa saying all that it is the pple themselves.”
I will put a big question mark about the people in the rural areas singing “ED and Zanu PF must go!” given the rural voters are nothing but medieval serfs beholden to the overbearing Zanu PF operatives – war veterans, green bombers, Chiefs, Headmen, etc.
Still, I would concede that ED and Zanu PF would lose if the elections were free, fair and credible. The point is these 2023 elections are NOT free, fair and credible, as were the 2013 and 2018 elections because MDC leaders failed to implement the reforms when they had the chance to do so during the GNU. Chamisa and company are participating in these elections knowing Zanu PF will rig them because they are after the few gravy train seats Zanu PF is offering as bait.
By participating in the flawed elections MDC A is giving Zanu PF legitimacy and perpetuate the party’s stay in power. You can sing Zanu PF must go all you want that will not change the reality on the ground!
BULAWAYO has recorded zero new voter registrants since the commencement of the voter registration exercise, a trend reported to be also prevalent in other parts of the country, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) has revealed.
Zec Bulawayo provincial elections officer Innocent Ncube yesterday appealed to politicians to mobilise for voter registration ahead of the constituency delimitation exercise.
Zec resumed other electoral processes like voter registration on April 1, after months of suspension of electoral activities due to COVID-19 preventive measures put in place by government, but by-elections remain suspended.
"People are not coming to register to vote. On average, we record zero new voter registrants per day. The figures are disappointing," Ncube said
"We are preparing for delimitation, an exercise that is based on registered voters, and what it simply means for Bulawayo is that if people are not coming to register to vote, there is a likelihood of losing two to three constituencies. It is up to politicians to make sure that people come and register to vote," he said.
It is no secret that it is very, very difficult to register as a voter if you considered an opposition supporter, you have to jump many huddles and waterfilled ditches and even then may find you details posted in another constituency other than the one you registered.
A massive voter registration exercise is now a permanent activity in Zimbabwe’s election cycle. Instead of updating the voters’ roll we always start from scratch and more often than not the opposition strongholds always end up having a rural segment added or even losing a constituency or two to Zanu PF rural stronghold.
MDC A has boasting of its #onemilliovote drive being “unstoppable” so if they are failing to register voters in their own stronghold how can they be doing even better in Zanu PF strongholds. This is just another one of MDC A lies.
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