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UNDP
denies hobnobbing with govt
Kumbirai Mafunda,
The Financial Gazette (Zimbabwe)
October
19, 2006
http://www.fingaz.co.zw/story.aspx?stid=1769
THE United Nations
Development Programme (UNDP) has defended its role in brokering
a recent consultative meeting on the establishment of a human rights
commission, which Zimbabwe’s main rights groups boycotted.
Influential
human rights and pro-democracy organisations, including the combative
National
Constitutional Assembly (NCA), the militant Zimbabwe
Congress of Trade Unions, the Crisis
in Zimbabwe Coalition (CZC), the Zimbabwe
Lawyers for Human Rights and the Media
Institute of Southern Africa, boycotted the inaugural consultative
meeting hosted by the UNDP in Kariba last month to show their disapproval
of police brutality against labour leaders.
The rights bodies
have also demanded the repeal of repressive legislation such as
the Public
Order and Security Act (POSA) and the Access
to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA), before
the government considers the setting up of a rights commission.
Leaders of the
civic organisations accused the UNDP of trying to push them to enter
into dialogue with the government without taking their concerns
into consideration.
But the UNDP
refutes suggestions that it is hobnobbing with President Robert
Mugabe’s government, which the organisations accuse of gross human
rights abuses.
"Our role
is to facilitate dialogue. We are not pushing anybody. We are committed
to dialogue. If NGOs say we want to meet government we will go ahead
and organise a meeting and if the government says it wants to meet
civic society we will do that (organise a meeting)," said Nana
Busia, the UNDP’s senior legal and policy adviser.
Although only
six non-governmental organisations attended the inaugural consultative
meeting held in the resort town of Kariba, the UNDP is reportedly
pressing ahead with plans to hold a second consultative meeting
later this month.
Insiders within
the civic society movement say they are working hand in hand with
the UNDP on an itinerary for the second consultative meeting.
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