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Obligation not charity
Crisis
in Zimbabwe Coalition
December 12, 2006
On Sunday 10 December,
the world commemorated International Human Rights Day under the
theme, "fighting poverty as a matter of obligation and not charity".
It is mandatory for every government to recognize and respect people’s
rights. However, Zimbabwe has gained a reputation of State-orchestrated
and organized human rights violations and a general disdain for
the rule of law.
According to the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international protocols
on the promotion and protection of rights, Human Rights are rights
everyone should enjoy by virtue of being human. Every person has
a right to life, food, water, health care, shelter, equality, human
dignity, housing, education, freedom of expression, assembly and
association regardless of their sex, religion, creed or color.
The Zimbabwean
authorities view fighting poverty as a work of charity rather than
an obligation. Of late the government has been commending itself
for building houses under the Operation Garikai –Hlalani Kuhle
clearly forgetting that it is the one that displaced the people
in the first place when it unleashed a reign of terror on its law
abiding citizens on the 18th of May 2005.
The government of President Robert Mugabe has abandoned its domestic
and international obligations to provide, promote and protect human
rights as is clearly indicated by its continued attacks against
human rights defenders, workers, students, women, children and the
weak in our society. The 13th September 2006 incident
where Wellington Chibebe the Zimbabwe
Congress of Trade Unions Secretary General and his colleagues
were brutalized by state agents while in police custody indicates
that the government has lost its constitutional, international and
moral obligations to protect its citizens.
It is the view of the Coalition that the United Nations and the
African Union should call upon the Zimbabwean government to abide
by its obligations under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the African
Commission on Human and Peoples Rights to which Zimbabwe among other
international human rights protocols is a party.
Visit the Crisis
in Zimbabwe Coalition fact
sheet
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