Africa, Development & Aid, Economy & Trade, Headlines, Human Rights

ZIMBABWE: Rights Groups Disappointed at SADC Summit

Jonathan Bell

WASHINGTON, Aug 23 2007 (IPS) - Last week’s regional Southern African summit, which focused on the deteriorating situation in Zimbabwe, has not impressed human rights groups, which were hoping for specific plans to be made concerning the daily rights violations in Zimbabwe.

The Southern African Development Community (SADC) Heads of State and Government summit, which was held in Zambia Aug. 16-17, had been expected to deal with more than just the upcoming elections and the economy, something which did not happen.

“The summit has regrettably squandered a critical opportunity to re-examine the negotiation mandate it gave to South African President Mbeki and to include specific measures to address continued human rights violations in Zimbabwe,” said Tiseke Kasambala, a researcher at Human Rights Watch. “SADC’s inability to act on this urgent situation is deeply disappointing.”

This came as no surprise to some human rights advocates who doubted that Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe would change his policies. At the SADC summit last March, Mugabe was unrepentant despite being warned that he would face isolation should he fail to restore political and economic freedoms.

Mbeki, who is the SADC-appointed mediator between the ruling ZANU-PF and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, said at the summit that some progress had been made, but no details were made available.

“I am disappointed that SADC did not highlight and condemn the systematic repression by the Zimbabwe government,” said Rowly Brucken, Zimbabwe country specialist for Amnesty International USA. The Mugabe government has “consistently denied that it has fallen short of any international [human rights] standards”.

Complementing the African Union, SADC is an inter-governmental organisation founded to encourage socio-economic, political and security cooperation between 14 Southern African countries. Although observers say that human rights violations in Zimbabwe have been getting worse for seven years, SADC seems unable to affect significant change in the country.

“(S)tate-sponsored harassment, attacks, arbitrary arrests, beatings, and torture of opposition members…continue unabated,” said a recent Human Rights Watch (HRW) report.

After one peaceful protest concerning rising university fees, 15 students were severely beaten by police, said HRW.

According to the report, rifle butts, batons, and live ammunition, and treatment in custody amounting to torture – such as shackling prisoners in painful positions and beating them harshly on the soles of their feet – have all been used against unarmed demonstrators.

“Of course he was bashed. He deserved it…I told the police to beat him a lot,” President Mugabe declared at a ZANU-PF party rally in March, referring to the beating of opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai.

In the same month, a Save Zimbabwe Campaign prayer meeting in Harare was violently disrupted, with police arresting 50 people.

According to another report last month by the South Africa-based Solidarity Peace Trust, among 414 individuals interviewed, more than 30 percent reported torture during the period March, April and May 2007.

“This is a shockingly high figure, yet it represents the tip of the iceberg in Zimbabwe. Apart from politically motivated torture, torture of those arrested on suspicion of having committed a criminal offence is routine in Zimbabwe,” notes the report.

“In 90 percent of the attacks, government agencies such as the police, Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO), Criminal Investigation Department (CID) and army” were involved, it adds. More than three-quarters of reported cases were in the capital, Harare – “one of the two major urban areas considered to be opposition territory”.

Recent years have seen Zimbabwe plunged into a crisis caused by a variety of factors, including increased repression and politically-motivated farm seizures. Mugabe accuses the West of plotting to unseat him, and of opposing land reform in Zimbabwe because it has caused minority white farmers to be dispossessed.

The SADC summit was held amid speculation over how long Mugabe would be able to stay in power, in light of his lack of popularity amongst the Zimbabwean people and next year’s elections.

Most of Zimbabwe’s population of roughly 11 million people has been unable to afford even basic foodstuffs for some time, even with the recent price cuts by Mugabe.

On Jun. 26, Mugabe decreed that supermarkets should slash their prices in half, effectively declaring the 10,000 percent inflation illegal. More than 1,300 supermarket managers and owners have been arrested for refusing to sell their merchandise at the lower prices.

Meanwhile, basic items such as cooking oil, salt, sugar and mealie meal (maize meal, a staple food) have disappeared from store shelves and resurfaced in the thriving parallel market, where they are sold at much higher prices.

The World Food Programme announced that the conditions in Zimbabwe mean that its stockpiles will be empty by the end of the year, and has appealed for over 188 million dollars to help feed Zimbabwe’s population

Even as the lack of food is causing malnutrition and contributing to other diseases such as tuberculosis, hospitals lack electricity, water, and the most basic equipment, including IV fluids, painkillers and saline solution for surgery patients.

According to the United Nations, Zimbabwe’s life expectancy is among the lowest in the world, and is getting worse.