Back to Index

ZINASU President in critical condition
Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition
October 18, 2004

Zimbabwe National Students Union (ZINASU) president, Philani Zamchiya is in critical condition at a Harare Hospital.He was abducted and tortured by Robert Mugabes thugs on the eve of MDC presidents judgement.

He was abducted on thursday around seven PM as he walked home from the ZINASU offices. He says a B2200 truck with five plain clothes police oficers grabbed him and assaulted him seriously whilst driving at high speed towards the eastern side of town. After massive torture, he jumped off the vehicle and collapsed for three hours beside the road. He gained consciousness around ten pm and got assistance from a good samaritan who took him to hospital.

On the same day, the police went to the University of Zimbabwe and assaulted Gladys Hlatshwayo, the unions second female Secretary General in history.We visited Philani in hospital and the situation breaks our hearts.

This assault confirms the systematic attempt by the Robert Mugabe government to exterminate any voice any voice of dissent. This assault on the ZINASU president follows on the heels of Robert Mugabes killing of two students in 2001. It is in keeping with his governments expulsion of more than sixty student leaders between 2000 and 2003.

The history of killing and expulsion of student leaders is not new to Zimbabwe. The apartheid system before independence treated student leaders just in the same fashion. The misfotune is that the people who are in government today, were the liberators of the 1970s.

It is important to state that this event when matched with othert numerous cases of torture and rape all to achieve the one party state dream of Robert Mugabe, puts the people of Zimbabwe under a serious quagmire. These unfortunate conditions leave people with the choice of civil retaliation, which will plunge Zimbabwe into a civil strife.

ZINASU, a body of more than 200 000 students from the 42 tertiary institutions in Zimbabwe and some high schools advocates for pro-poor polices such as privatisation, anti corruption , peace, anti-HIV/Aids policies and free and fair elections. This act of terror on a twenty three year old unarmed young man must be condemned for what it is-criminal. Zinasu can be contacted on : zinasueducation@justice.com
or sst@africaonline.co.zw

Even if we are abducted and killed, our minds will live for Dictators can only harm the body, but the ideas in which our power resides live forever. The struggle continues.

Itai Zimunya,
Former Vice President, ZINASU

Visit the Crisis in Zimbabwe fact sheet

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