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Trends of political violence report January - June 2013
Heal Zimbabwe Trust
July 21, 2013

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Introduction

Heal Zimbabwe Trust continue to track and record human rights violations in Zimbabwe’s political hotspots through its weekly trends of political violence update. This issue is an analysis of violations that Heal Zimbabwe captured in the period from January to June 2013. The period under review witnessed varying developments in the political landscape in Zimbabwe with major highlights being the signing of a new constitution into law, the election date debate, SADC summits and rulings on Zimbabwe, harassment of civil society activists and organisations by the state, voter registration and more recently political party primary elections. Overt and covert violations were recorded in the last six months, assault, arson and abductions were the notable overt violations and were witnessed mainly in Midlands, Mashonaland East and Mashonaland Central. The covert cases of violence such as intimidation, harassment and forced attendance to meetings top the list of violations since all provinces recorded such cases. Masvingo province recorded the highest cases of intimidation while Mashonaland West was generally peaceful and recorded isolated cases of intimidation in Karoi district.

31 July Elections

As HZT, we believe that elections in Zimbabwe were bound to happen anyway at the end of the Inclusive Government. However, these elections were supposed to take place in an environment in which reforms that are meant to ensure security of citizens and free participation of everyone have been implemented. Most importantly, the GPA, article VII that speaks to issues of national healing and article XVIII that speaks on the need to prosecute perpetrators of political violence is a clear indication that the Inclusive Government had a mandate to prevent further violence. This however, has not been implemented, perpetrators still remain unaccounted for by the law. There have been limited attempts by the Inclusive Government in restoring people's confidence in state institutions that are responsible for the security of the citizens. As HZT, an election that is free of intimidation and human rights abuses is what we demand. We call for the operationalisation of the Human Rights Commission especially now as we heard towards elections. HZT applauds the political leaders for their efforts in campaigning for peaceful elections and therefore we call upon them to walk the peace talk.

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