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Zimbabwe's upcoming elections threaten another campaign of rape
AIDS Free World
July 21, 2010

AIDS-Free World calls urgently for international action to prevent the looming carnage in Zimbabwe. The United Nations Security Council must take the lead in confronting President Robert Mugabe. If it does not, the next presidential election period, quite likely in 2011, will condemn the women of Zimbabwe to a grisly repeat of the politically motivated rape campaign orchestrated by Mugabe during the 2008 elections.

We also call upon the AIDS movement to use its considerable weight and incorporate this issue into its agenda. As a first step, we urge the AIDS and human rights community to attend a regional conference we plan to hold in Africa to find strategies for legal accountability for international crimes of sexual violence on the continent.

AIDS activists have shown that they can be a powerful force for change. As people with a deep commitment to human rights, AIDS activists have both moral and practical reasons to help stop state-sponsored sexual crimes. Protecting those who are exposed to human rights violations that put them at risk of HIV is a crucial part of HIV prevention. Fighting impunity for sexual crimes is essential to preventing further spread of the pandemic.

AIDS-Free World began its work on political rape immediately after the bloody 2008 elections in Zimbabwe. For the next year and a half, we visited southern Africa with teams of international lawyers and interviewed 70 rape victims, collecting over 300 hours of testimony detailing 380 total acts of rape. In December 2009, we released our report, Electing to Rape: Sexual Terror in Mugabe's Zimbabwe, in Johannesburg. The report presents compelling evidence that the rapes were crimes against humanity under international law; that the campaign was effective in terrorizing communities and winning the election for ZANU-PF; that it was widespread and systematic; and that it will happen again unless Mugabe is stopped.

Our report of devastating accounts of humiliation, pain and degradation was widely covered in the media, yet the government of Zimbabwe simply ignored the charges. Other lawyers in Africa have corroborated, through separate interviews, the irrefutable evidence we provided, yet the institutional regional response has been no better: neither the Southern African Development Community (SADC) nor the African Union took note of these crimes, much less action to seek accountability. The next SADC meeting is scheduled to take place in Windhoek in mid-August, and Zimbabwe should be a priority on the agenda. The next AU Summit is at the end of this month; they, too, should take action. Intense pressure from SADC and the AU could bring Mugabe to his knees. It is unacceptable for the African community, knowing full well what has happened and will happen in Zimbabwe, to stand by passively as Mugabe gears up for another campaign of rape and terror to hold onto power. This time, the international community has advance notice. This time, we will all be responsible if the atrocities are repeated.

AIDS-Free World continues to advocate for action at the highest levels of international organizations. Next month we will speak with officials of the International Criminal Court. We are exploring the possibility of litigation in African courts as one strategy to end impunity for rapists involved in crimes against humanity. We continue to point out that international resolutions created to protect women in conflict -- Resolutions 1325, 1820 and 1888, which deal with sexual violence and the peace process -- have done nothing for the women of Zimbabwe.

In the months after their brutal rapes, 37 percent of the women we interviewed tested positive for HIV. Whether or not they acquired HIV from their rapists, the consequent trauma and displacement put their health and treatment in jeopardy. The culture of impunity in Zimbabwe, so entrenched that the actions of the president himself promote rape as an effective political strategy, helps spread HIV. In their sworn affidavits, several women reported that the men who raped them specifically threatened them with HIV. One woman quoted her rapist as saying, "We have hurt you. So go get tested because we have given you the prize for what you were doing."

The UN Security Council is often fearful of prejudging. It tends to wait until a crisis is fullblown before it acts. In the case of Zimbabwe, the writing is on the wall: Mugabe and ZANU-PF supporters are prepared to do whatever it takes to win the next elections. According to local accounts, they are already reactivating the torture and rape camps in Zimbabwe and ensuring that the infrastructure is in place to hurt the opposition again.

And after the next campaign, more women will flee the country, heading for even more danger - violence and xenophobia in neighboring South Africa and Botswana.

The United Nations can choose to wait and count the number of women raped, the number of new HIV cases, and the number of tortured bodies, or it can choose to act now. In conjunction with SADC and the AU, the Security Council can finally give life to the principle of "Responsibility to Protect" and apply it to Zimbabwe. Neighboring countries can either utilize their courts to prosecute Zimbabwean perpetrators, where possible, or revise their national legislation to make such domestic prosecutions of international crimes viable.

The AIDS movement, too, must act. If we do not, we are complicit. We must recognize the plight of Zimbabwe's women for what it is - an imminently desperate situation of fundamental relevance to human rights and the fight against HIV - and speak out in support of accountability for heinous past crimes, and prevention of future rapes.

CONTACT:

Julia Greenberg, jg@aidsfreeworld.org or in the Media Centre
Local cell: +43 (0) 650 480 7308 International cell: +1 (347) 564 8935
Christina Magill, clm@aidsfreeworld.org
Local cell: +43 (0) 650 721 6406 International cell: +1 (647) 242 4460

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