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2008 harmonised elections - Index of articles
Post-election violence 2008 - Index of articles & images
Zimbabwe
teachers face punishment
Brian
Hungwe, BBC News
May 22, 2008
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7413165.stm
Zimbabwean school teacher
Patrick (not his real name) is angry and in pain.
He has three broken ribs,
a bandaged right arm and is barely able to sit up; traces of blood
can be seen in the drip attached to his stomach.
Two weeks ago he was
beaten with iron bars in the northern Mashonaland Central Province.
He says the ruling Zanu-PF
party youths who attacked him wanted to know why his school, used
as a polling station in the 29 March elections, recorded a high
figure of opposition voters.
"I am no longer
going back to teaching," he says from a private clinic in the
capital, Harare.
"It's the end of
my career as a teacher. I'm going to find something else to do."
Backbone
Many
teachers acted as polling officers on election day - and have done
at every election since independence in 1980.
They are the backbone
of the country's electoral process.
But in rural areas, several
schools have been shut down because of political violence that has
been unleashed since the March polls.
Teachers are
being targeted,
the Progressive
Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ) says, and many are now fleeing.
More than 5,000 teachers
have been beaten about 600 hospitalized and 231 teachers' houses
burnt, the union says.
Raymond Majongwe, PTUZ
secretary general, says the number of teachers being attacked is
growing by the day and as a result the quality of education is suffering.
"The same teachers
that are being pushed around and being beaten are no longer going
to be giving their best," he said.
"They will be looking
over their shoulder every other time to see who is present, who
is coming and who is advancing," he said, describing their
fear.
Zimbabwe's education
system, once the envy of the region, has recorded its "worst
year", he said.
"I think
if education could be described as being in hospital, it would be
in an intensive care unit," he said.
For the
Zimbabwe Election Commission, the massive displacement of teachers
could prove a headache ahead of the planned presidential run-off
on 27 June.
Polling officers from
different sectors will need to be recruited and trained.
Difficult
And
it has not just been teachers under attack. Independent election
observers have not been spared either.
The Zimbabwe
Election Support Network (Zesn) had more than 8,000 observers
across the country during the March vote.
It says hundreds
of them are now being persecuted
ahead of the run-off.
And despite the courage
to go on, it is fast losing members willing to take part because
of the continued crackdown.
Zesn admits monitoring
the run-off will be an extremely difficult task.
But Zesn Chairman Noel
Kutukwa is not giving up.
"We believe our
role is to observe the election and to produce a report that is
as accurate as possible according to what we have observed and the
ground," he said.
"Our intention is
that we will observe those elections, but we will not risk our observers.
We will have to come up with different strategies of doing the same
work."
Nevertheless, it is an
issue certain to impact on the freeness and fairness of the run-off.
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