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Students remanded in custody for 16 days
Students Solidarity Trust
May 12, 2006

In the midst of Bindura, on the way to Chipadze Township – stands an outstanding billboard, with a menacing figure spotting it. Inscribed on the billboard is a message that sends shivers to any passer by – *Zanu PF chete muBindura (in proper speak: Welcome to ZANU PF hinterland).* It is a permanent feature of Zanu PF’s political commissar and Bindura Member of Parliament, Elliot Manyika.

At the Kimberly Reef Hotel, a threatening group of Zanu PF youths sit idle in the Cocopan cocktail bar. The hotel is just opposite the Bindura magistrates’ courts. Early in the morning, they had staged a demonstration outside the courts, clamoring for the continued incarceration of students from Bindura University. The ZANU PF lambent youths had earlier on, threatened lawyers representing students, warning them never to set foot in Bindura again, or to do so at their own peril. Alec Muchadehama and Andrew Makoni are representing the students – they had to flee from the cauldron of Bindura!

Zimbabwe’s Minister without Portfolio, Zanu PF’s political commissar and controversially elected Member of Parliament for Bindura, Elliot Manyika, is reported to have given a directive that the students should not be released and threatened the Magistrate with unspecified action if that directive was not followed. Sources hold that the Magistrate was later heard bragging in the Cocopan cocktail bar that the students would be released over his dead body.

The students at the Bindura University of Science and Technology staged a peaceful demonstration at the campus, demanding a reversal of the anti-students and ill-advised fees structure, which is beyond the reach of ordinary students. 19 students were arrested at the campus on Monday, and additional 29 students have been detained, amongst them the remaining members of the Students Representative Council.

The students, who include the newly elected ZINASU Secretary General from Bulawayo’s National University of Science and Technology, Beloved Chiweshe, have been remanded in custody to the 26^th of May 2006! A move that is unprecedented in the history of the students’ movement in Zimbabwe. Beloved, who was clearly tortured, is said to have been kept in solitary confinement. A visibly shaken, but hardly recognizable Beloved, stationed in the dock, is in dire need of medical attention, which he is being denied access to, even after court officials were told that it would not be at the state’s expense.

At the main campus in Bindura – a tension filled atmosphere grips the University. At the entrance is a nerve-racking group of AK47 wielding riot police. Business in the campus is at a standstill, with the University still coming to terms with the explosion that rocked the faculty of commerce department – by unknown assailants. It is a rubble!

On the road to Mt. Darwin is the University’s residential campus – which resembles a war zone. Riot police put all the students under 24hours surveillance, tantamount to a house arrest. A group of students, weary faced, sit on the rugged terrain, surrounded by a swathe of riot police – they are uncompromising.

These sad developments are coupled by other acts of politically motivated student victimizations at other tertiary intuitions. The sad developments ride on the back of the ZINASU congress, which took place from the 3^rd to the 5^th of May, where it was resolved that students would reject the unbecoming new fees structures, as it was an affront not only to academic freedoms, but also the sacrosanct right to education.

In the past week alone, 4 student leaders and Activists have been suspended from Masvingo State University, 7 from the University of Zimbabwe, and the arrest of 48 students leaders who were delegates to the ZINASU congress, including the Coordinator of ZINASU, Washington Katema, SST Program Officer Simbarashe Moyo, and Information liaison Committee member Charlse Mutengwa, over a damaged Mugabe portrait.

The Zimbabwe National Students Union (ZINASU), and the Students Solidarity Trust (SST), calls upon the head of state, Robert Gabriel Mugabe, and the Minister of Home Affairs Kembo Mohadi, to use their authority to persuade the police to rescind from harassing, torturing, and wantonly violating the fundamental human rights and arresting students, who are merely trying to affirm their right to education through peaceful protest. The ZINASU and SST further calls upon, Robert Gabriel Mugabe, in his capacity as the Chancellor of state universities, and Stanslius Gorerazvo Mudenge, the minister of Higher and Tertiary Education, to recant the new fees structure, as it is clear unsustainable, and an unnecessary assault on the right to education.

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