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Freeing
a country from its liberator
Tawanda
Mutasah
Extracted from Open Society News: Winter 2007-2008
February 04, 2008
http://www.soros.org/resources/articles_publications/publications/osn_20080204
Tawanda Mutasah,
executive director of the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa,
outlines how President Robert Mugabe has destroyed a country he
helped liberate and the choices facing advocates for democracy in
Zimbabwe.
Zimbabwe is a
country in crisis. President Robert Mugabe's regime has closed independent
newspapers and radio stations, bombing one station and arresting
and prosecuting its directors, including Isabella Matambanadzo,
Zimbabwe program manager at the Open Society Initiative for Southern
Africa.
Human rights abuses
include more than 4,000 documented cases of the torture and abduction
of prodemocracy activists and political opponents in 2007 alone,
including the globally televised aftermath of the deadly crackdown
against peaceful demonstrators on March 11. Mugabe's reign of terror
is decades old. Even in the early years of independence from Britain,
Mugabe's systematic silencing of all real political opposition resulted
in the murder of 20,000 Zimbabweans in western and southern Zimbabwe-genocide
by any name.
In the winter
of 2005, the government
razed to the ground the homes of 700,000 Zimbabweans, destroying
the livelihoods of 20 percent of the population and drawing condemnation
from the United Nations (UN). Mugabe's militia was responsible for
an orgy of state-sanctioned and stateorganized looting, rape, and
violence. The violence provided the requisite smokescreen behind
which Mugabe and his supporters could shut down newspapers, bomb
radio stations, purge the bench of independent judges, beat
up lawyers, murder opposition politicians and political campaign
staff, starve political opponents, and enable senior military, police,
intelligence, and ruling party people to amass stupendous levels
of wealth.
The Zimbabwe crisis
has demonstrated important weaknesses in the international protection
of human rights. In spite of rhetorical commitments about the "responsibility
to protect," the global system has yet to develop and wield a truly
effective mechanism for protecting victims of abuse who cannot find
relief in domestic jurisdictions. The regime in Harare has ignored
recommendations for human rights and democracy restoration from
the UN's Human Rights Commissioner, the African Commission on Human
and People's Rights, and the Southern Africa Development Community's
Parliamentary Forum, among many others. It has resisted the sending
into Zimbabwe of human rights rapporteurs from the UN system and
human rights investigators from the Pan-African Parliament. With
the aid of the South African administration, it has resisted having
Zimbabwe on the agenda of the UN Human Rights Council and the Security
Council.
Zimbabwe's African
neighbors can use their proximity to effectively crack the whip
on Mugabe's human rights infractions, or they can shield him from
international rebuke. While South African President Thabo Mbeki
has made an important contribution to his country's democratic development,
he remains reluctant to address the true nature of Mugabe's abuse
of power and enables him to buy time as he decimates dissidents.
A bona fide transition to democracy will not be possible until human
rights are protected and all Zimbabweans can participate in governing
the country without fear of reprisal.
The end is not
yet in sight, but the work must continue.
For more information
To learn more about what OSI and the Open Society Initiative for
Southern Africa are doing to aid democratic development in Zimbabwe,
go to: www.osisa.org
and www.soros.org/resources/multimedia/zimbabwe
Please credit www.kubatana.net if you make use of material from this website.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License unless stated otherwise.
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