Back to Index

Appeal from church leaders of Southern Africa
Solidarity Peace Trust
September 05, 2003

Read the report - An overview of youth militia training and activities in Zimbabwe, Oct 2000 - Aug 2003

It takes great wickedness for those in power to be prepared to sacrifice a whole generation, the youth of the nation, in order to maintain their own hold on power. But that is precisely the wickedness revealed in this report. The youth of Zimbabwe are being used, and abused, in a most cynical and calculating way by the very people entrusted with responsibility for their welfare.

Behind the mask of a programme bearing the innocuous title "national youth service training" lurks a pernicious evil that threatens not only to destroy the nation's youth but also to subvert many of the core Christian values upon which the nation was built. It is the great merit of this report that it tears off this mask and exposes to full view the inner workings of this scheme. With the publication of this report no longer will there be any possible justification for the old excuse "I didn't know", whether coming from a Zimbabwean or the international community.

The national youth service training programme masquerades as a youth training scheme that imparts useful skills and patriotic values. As this well-documented report makes clear, nothing could be farther from the truth. The reality is a paramilitary training programme for Zimbabwe's youth with the clear aim of inculcating blatantly antidemocratic, racist and xenophobic attitudes. The youth militias so created are used as instruments of the ruling party, to maintain their hold on power by whatever means necessary, including torture, rape, murder and arson. Having been thoroughly brain-washed, the youth militias are deployed to carry out whatever instructions they receive from their political commissars, on the understanding that they will never be called to account by this regime for any of their deeds. The report details the use of the militias by those who control them to carry forward the ZANU-PF political agenda in everything from manipulating election results to controlling the food distribution process to the party's advantage.

While the militias are trained and incited to commit grievous violent crimes against their fellow citizens, it is also a fact that many of them have become victims of human rights' abuses themselves in the course of training. The most conspicuous example of this abuse is the rape, and multiple rape, of young girls by the boys undergoing training with them, and by their military instructors. The resulting pregnancies and infections with sexually-transmitted diseases, including HIV, not only devastate the lives of the youth concerned but are creating a terrible legacy for the nation.

Those responsible for instigating this vile system have introduced into the body politic, a cancer, which now spreads through the nation unchecked and leaves destruction in its wake. The nation's youth are being deliberately corrupted and brutalized, and then deployed to wreak havoc among the people, for no other purpose but to carry forward ZANU- PF's political agenda. The moral, spiritual and physical well-being of a whole generation of Zimbabweans is being sacrificed for the short-term political advantage of those in power, with incalculable long-term effects upon the very fabric of the nation. How, we ask, will it ever be possible to reintegrate these young people into the communities that they have terrorized?

In our view this is an outrage against which every single peace-loving Zimbabwean, together with the whole international community, should rise up in angry protest. Every youth whose future is thus threatened, every parent, every grand-parent, every brother and sister - indeed every responsible citizen with a care for the well-being of the nation - should stand, shoulder-to-shoulder, and say "No!" to this evil scheme.

As Church leaders, to those who are responsible, we reiterate the words of the prophet Jeremiah: '"Woe to the shepherds who are destroying and scattering the sheep of my pasture!" declares the Lord' (Jeremiah 23/1) And we remind those who deliberately corrupt the nation's youth of our Lord's most severe warning: "If anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea." (Matthew 18/6)

In the final analysis there is no impunity for those who break God's law, and especially terrible is the judgment of those who deliberately lead others into sin.

The appalling danger posed by the youth militia training must be faced with the utmost urgency. It requires a united response across the nation. Our particular constituency is the Church, and therefore our call for an urgent and united response is first directed to the Church, which nominally accounts for some 70 per cent of the population. But the call is wider and should embrace all men and women of good will who desire peace and harmony for the nation.

We appeal to all Zimbabweans to join us in addressing the following urgent demands to those who exercise power in our nation today:

1. The immediate cessation of the national youth service training programme
2. The closing of all training camps across the country
3. The surrender to lawful authority of all weapons now in the hands of the youth militias
4. The thorough investigation of all crimes committed by the youth militia and prosecution of those responsible for murder, rape, torture and arson, with priority being given to bringing to justice those responsible for inciting and encouraging these brutal crimes
5. The setting up of a truly national forum of civic and church leaders to determine a comprehensive programme for the rehabilitation and reintegration of former members of the youth militias into society.

We appeal to our colleagues in the SADC region to speak out and condemn the Zimbabwean Government for promoting the militarization of youth in Zimbabwe. We appeal to Commonwealth countries to maintain and intensify the isolation of the Zimbabwean government and to make disbandment of the youth militia one of the conditions that must be met before our nation can be readmitted into the international community.

Signed:
Zimbabwe National Pastors Conference
Ecumenical Support Services, Zimbabwe
Harare Ecumenical Working Group
Christians Together for Justice and Peace, Bulawayo
Archbishop Pius Ncube, Bulawayo, Zimbabwe
Bishop Rubin Phillip, Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa
Bishop Kevin Dowling, Rustenburg, South Africa

Please credit www.kubatana.net if you make use of material from this website. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License unless stated otherwise.

TOP