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Kadoma pre-election violence report
Zimbabwe Human Rights Association (ZimRights)
November 28, 2003

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As the country gears itself for possibly another campaign for 2005 general elections, tension has already been registered especially in Kadoma town where a by-election is to be conducted on the 29-30 November 2003 to replace the legislator Honourable Mupandawana who passed away.

In Zimbabwe, history has proved that democratic elections per se will not guarantee peace, freedom, justice and economic prosperity. They however, afford the citizens the opportunity to judge the leaders and to freely elect those they want as leaders. Free elections should be an open and honest conversation between rulers and the ruled in which both speak as well as listen.¹ The culture of fear and political violence especially around election time render it most difficult for a pluralistic political system to viably challenge the status quo in Zimbabwe. Intimidation, inducing of fear and organised violence have generally been used as tools of repression inhibiting the full enjoyment of fundamental freedoms. Repressive legislations have also been introduced to sustain a culture of fear and to thwart dissent.

Zimbabweans are suffering economicaly and state sponsored militias continue to cause further suffering and commit numerous acts of human rights abuses entrenching a culture and pattern of impunity. The Human Rights Forum Special Report 4 of May 2002 gives a list of innocent souls who were heinously killed during the elections². There is need to constantly remind ZANU PF that it is responsible for the deaths. This is why the party has gone to some unprecedented levels of actually training our youths to engage in violence. ZimRights defines "impunity" as the failure by the Government to bring to book (rebuke/punish) those who violate human rights. The individuals used to perpetuate violence are rewarded instead of being punished. Some of them are promoted, as is, the case of Joseph Mwale³ the notorious Central Intelligence Agency (CIO) officer.

Impunity taken to these levels tends to compound problems facing Zimbabwe today. Indeed the electorate will and would have made the government more accountable if there had been free and fair elections. It can be recalled that in 1994 ZimRights organised a National Constitutional Consultative Conference that drew up eight minimum conditions for free and fair elections. Nothing, however, has been done to dismantle the quasi one-party system in the country. In 1997 another Constitutional, Multi-party consultation was organised by ZimRights to review consitutional and institutional factors affecting the conduct of free and fair elections in Zimbabwe. In Zimbabwe, the call for levelling the political playing field cannot be over-emphasised. Calls have been echoed by the regional and international communities so that democratic rights can be realised, but as usual, such calls have received the usual diplomatic indifference. Many thanks go to the civil society movement in Zimbabwe, which continues to courageously stand firm against threats and harassment. Such attempts seem to play ambulance service at the bottom of the cliff for the victims of impunity. However, it is only through the participation of the ordinary citizen that true democracy will be attained. Citizens have the duty to call for and defend their democratic right - only better expressed through the exercise of universal suffrage during plesbicites.

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