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ZIMBABWE: UN denies NGO accusations of "being in bed" with Mugabe
IRIN News
September 29, 2006

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=55771

JOHANNESBURG - The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Zimbabwe has denied accusations that it was "in bed" with President Robert Mugabe's government.

A nongovernmental organisation (NGO), the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition, made the claim ahead of a consultative meeting between civil society and the government, hosted by the UN last week, on setting up a National Human Rights Commission. Nixon Nyikadzino, a media officer with the coalition, said the Mugabe regime was "pulling wool over the eyes of the UNDP".

"The accusation that we are in bed with the government of Zimbabwe is unfounded and in bad faith," the UNDP resident representative in Zimbabwe, Agostinho Zacarias, told IRIN. "Containment and isolation of the government is not our strategy. We are not selectively consulting NGOs - everyone and anyone can participate. We believe in a policy of engaging the government and the civil society."

Six nongovernmental organisations attended the consultative meeting: the National Association for NGOs (NANGO), an umbrella organisation with a membership of around 1,000 organisations; the Southern Africa Human Rights Trust; the Women's Coalition, a grouping of 22 women's rights organisations; the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum, a coalition of 16 rights groups; the National Association of Societies for the Care of the Handicapped; and the Zimbabwe Coalition for Debt and Development.

The Zimbabwean government has an international obligation to set up the human rights commission. Under a set of principles endorsed by the UN General Assembly in 1993, countries are obliged to create national human rights commissions. The UN defines a national human rights institution as a government body established under the constitution or by law, whose functions are specifically designed to promote and protect human rights.

Rights activists have regularly slammed legislation like the Public Order and Security Act (POSA), which prohibits public gatherings without police clearance, and the tough Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA), which regulates the media, as laws that impede constitutional rights to association and free speech.

Nyikadzino said his organisation, Crisis in Zimbabwe, chose not to participate because "we do not have an atmosphere conducive to setting up of a human rights institution - we have oppressive legislation which prevents demonstrations. Only recently leaders of the ZCTU [Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions] were beaten up while protesting the country's fast-deteriorating social and economic conditions. We feel some conditions should have been met by the government before holding talks".

According to the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum, the president, vice-president and secretary-general of the ZCTU were all violently arrested at protests almost two weeks ago, and subjected to "serious torture". All three sustained severe injuries while in police custody.

Rights NGOs were further outraged by Mugabe's comments earlier this week that "the police were right in dealing sternly with the ZCTU leaders".

On Thursday the UN country team in Zimbabwe expressed a "profound sense of dismay" over statements made by "Zimbabwean authorities", which might appear to be "condoning the use of force and torture to deal with peaceful demonstrations by its citizens", and called on the government to create an atmosphere in which Zimbabweans could freely exercise their constitutionally enshrined freedoms.

The Crisis Coalition's Nyikadzino welcomed the statement and said the UN had a "good track record in Zimbabwe as far as providing development assistance was concerned", but had fallen short in tackling issues of "good governance and rule of law".

"We have tried to follow up on several issues, like whether the UN had taken the government to task over Operation Murambastvina or not, but we have had no response," he said. The operation, launched last May, was the government's sudden campaign to purge informal settlements, which left more than 700,000 people homeless or without a livelihood in the winter of 2005.

The alleged torture and detention of the trade unionists was also raised at the consultative meeting, where NGOs described it as a paradox by the Zimbabwean government, who now wished to create a human rights commission.

"We must acknowledge this as a very small first step toward building dialogue," Zacarias commented. There was consensus on going ahead with process of setting up the rights body, but it was felt that confidence-building measures between the Zimbabwean government and the NGOs needed to be put in place, which might eventually result in an institutionalised forum for dialogue.

A follow-up meeting is to take place next month.

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