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Harare submits rights report after eight-year delay
ZimOnline
November
20, 2006
http://www.zimonline.co.za/Article.aspx?ArticleId=492
BANJUL - The
Zimbabwe government has submitted its first human rights report
in almost a decade to the African Commission on Human and People’s
Rights (ACHPR) but the document - in which Harare vehemently denies
violating human rights – was embargoed to the Press.
President Robert
Mugabe’s government, accused by Western governments and Zimbabwean
human rights groups of stealing elections and torturing opponents,
had since 1998 refused to comply with the African Charter on Human
and People’s Rights requiring African nations to submit yearly reports
on human rights to the ACHPR.
Director of
policy in Zimbabwe ‘s Ministry of Justice Margaret Chiduku told
ZimOnline that Harare had finally complied with the charter requirements
after it submitted its report to the ongoing 40th session of the
ACHPR in Banjul.
Chiduku, who
did not explain why it had taken Harare eight years to file the
report, said: "I am happy to report that we have submitted our combined
state party report since 1998 to the ACHPR and we await to hear
from the commissioners."
The ACHPR secretariat
and chairperson of the 40th ordinary session both confirmed that
Harare had filed its report but indicated it would remain embargoed
for now.
But diplomats
and ACHPR commissioners, who saw the report and spoke on condition
they were not named, said the document is a "vehement and unapologetic
attempt" by Harare to defend its controversial human rights
record.
They said Mugabe’s
government – which insists Zimbabwe’s political and economic crisis
is because of Western sanctions against the country – uses the same
argument in the report, saying whatever rights violations may have
occurred were because of the abnormal situation the country found
itself in after the West imposed sanctions on the government.
The United States,
European Union, New Zealand, Australia and Switzerland have imposed
visa and financial sanctions against Mugabe and his top officials
as punishment for allegedly stealing elections, human rights violations
and their controversial seizure of white-owned land for redistribution
to landless blacks.
According
to the ACHPR commissioners, Harare had wanted its report debated
by the current session but this was unlikely to happen with the
report most likely to be tabled for debate at the 41st session next
year.
"The idea was
to have it discussed and debated now but it came late. They wanted
to smuggle it on the agenda but we are going to deal with it in
the next session that is, the 41st session probably in July," added
a commissioner.
Zimbabwe non-governmental
organisations and human rights activists here in Banjul and who
have submitted dossiers chronicling Harare's poor human rights record,
including torture of labour leaders in September said they had not
anticipated Harare to finally submit its record of the human rights
situation in the country.
"While we welcome
Harare's submission of its combined state party reports since 1998,
the eight year delay is a cause for concern," said Wilbert Mandinde,
a legal officer of the Zimbabwe chapter of the Media Institute of
Southern Africa.
Human
rights violations have been on the increase in Zimbabwe chiefly
because of Mugabe’s increasing reliance on the military to keep
public discontent in check in the face of the worst ever economic
crisis of his rule. - ZimOnline
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