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Crime
and punishment in Zimbabwe
Robert Muponde, The Wiser Review No.3,
June 30, 2008
Zimbabwe means a dozen
things to a dozen people these days. To some, it represents the
relentless march of barbarity that has become so familiar in parts
of Africa. Being so close to Southern Africa, geographically and
historically, it is viewed as Africa-s leprous hand encroaching
on the only remaining sane country on the continent. Depictions
of Zimbabwe teem with predictions of doom and implosion, and warnings
so white South Africans that they still have some running away to
do. Little is being said about Zimbabwe-s remarkable, even
unbelievable achievements as a poor country ruled and perverted
through internal warfare. These achievements are not only in the
reduction of HIV infectious rates, but, ironically perhaps, in delivery
within the criminal justice system.
Zimbabwe is a country
in which crime is sponsored by Robert Mugabe-s ruling party
and certain arms of the state. It is a form of crime that is sown
like seed, but which remains alien to the soil from which it grows.
It can be cultivated by Mugabe when he needs it, but pulled as soon
as it has achieved the ruling party-s objectives. These objectives
relate to the desperate need to cow voters into supporting Mugabe
at every election.
This moral depravity
of the ruling party was seen recently when Mugabe lost an election
to the opposition party led Morgan Tsvangirai. In the past, the
media wash awash with 'expert- comments on the Zimbabwean
character. What has always confused 'observers- and
'experts- is the question: why have Zimbabweans allowed
Mugabe to abuse them? Are Zimbabweans a docile lot? The answer which
eludes the 'experts- on Zimbabwe is that, on the contrary,
Zimbabweans are a very active, morally and culturally restrained
people. They do not believe that violence ever solves social conflicts.
They do not believe that anyone or anything is worth killing for,
be it money or power, love or politics. Proverbs abound in Zimbabwean
culture which mock people who resort to violent crime in order to
right wrongs, or to enrich themselves. In an oblique reference to
Mugabe-s violent streak, Oliver Mutukudzi, the Zimbabwean
musician, sang about mangoromera ('jingoism-, loosely
translated) as a useless strategy (harina zvarinoshanda, haribatsire)
because it can never be used to rule people and settle matters in
court (zuva nezuva haritonge matare ngoromera). Recently, opposition
politicians in Zimbabwe have begun to explain the Zimbabwean population-s
reluctance to resort to violence in biological terms; that it is
not in the DNA of Zimbabweans. The point is that, Mugabe is teaching
people to be violent, to murder and plunder, things alien to Zimbabwean
society. To a considerable extent, this is true. Events of the past
few years and this May, have shown that violent crime in Zimbabwe
is a manifestation of political manipulation. It is not part of
the social fabric.
Of course, I am in danger
of romanticizing Zimbabwe: crime does exist and has since long before
the white man made his trek north of the Limpopo. And crime has
been exacerbated by the experiences of a money economy and the magnification
of social inequalities that postcolonial society represents.
But, what has slowed
down violent crime, such as murder and rape, are at least three
interrelated factors: the moral fibre of Zimbabwean people; the
nature of its prisons; and its economy.
Before the colonizers
interfered with the traditional ways of settling murder cases, it
was accepted that the murderer would be haunted by the dead, and
his family would make reparations to the wounded parties. These
included the payment of cattle as well as a human replacement for
the person murdered. The involvement of the whole community in the
payment of hefty fines, and in ritual cleansing ceremonies after
the murder, acted as deterrence. So, while there may not have been
jails in the conventional sense, the community itself constantly
reminded the society of the consequences of any failure to bring
up vanhu chaivo (proper human beings). Contemporary Zimbabwean society
has inherited some of this thinking, which informs how prisoners,
especially murderers, are treated in Zimbabwean prisons. The death
sentence is swiftly pronounced. A professional hangman carries out
the execution. Photographs of the hanged criminals are published
in the press. This is meant to confirm to society, and the victims
of the crime, that the perpetrator-s life has been justly
extinguished. There is hardly any debate about the pain inflicted
on the murderer, or whether there are ways of making executions
less painful. A murderer loses all rights the moment he terminates
another-s life. In any case, the murderer-s deed depletes
society of human beings, so if justly convicted, there is no need
to waste time and the country-s resources entertaining and
feeding what would ultimately destroy society. The tax-payer-s
money used to keep the violent criminal in jail could easily be
used to build hospitals, dig boreholes and buy school textbooks.
If the criminal is only going to serve a custodial sentence, then
he should be fed only portions of food that make it possible for
her to fulfill the terms of the court ruling. There is no room for
treating violent criminals as heroes. They have a right only to
a fair trial, and a fair sentence or execution.
There was one prisoner,
an ex-army officer, who escaped from prison in a Rambo-like fashion
and seized the attention of the whole country. He was eventually
captured in a small town in Mozambique, and was brought back to
prison. In his bid to escape, he grabbed a rifle from a prison guard
and in the scuffle shot the guard dead. He was charged with murder
and sentenced to death in spite of his 'popularity-.
Quite a number of people suggested that his life should be spared
so that he could recount his escapades in book form, or that perhaps
a movie might be made about him. While awaiting execution, he converted
to Christianity. He was executed all the same: a criminal-s
story is a criminal-s story. His conversion to Christianity
did not help bring back the life of the person he killed. That is
how the law works in Zimbabwe. That is how it should be. Life is
sacred. It is irreplaceable. It is not exchangeable.
Zimbabwean prisons are
run in such a way that even a short stay will turn a person into
a nervous wreck. It is difficult to find a criminal who, on being
imprisoned, waves cheerily to his family and friends, and says,
'I-ll be back-, an attitude you find in societies
where going to prison looks like a temporary set back. There are,
of course diehard criminals. But even they never wish to be inside
a Zimbabwean jail. They always try to run away from the law. Zimbabwean
prisons are never meant to be homely, in spite of calls to reform
them, or make condoms available to inmates. When you go in there,
kumazuvandadzoka. You can only tell the tale when you have survived
them. That is how it should be for justly convicted criminals. The
idea that prisons should be a home for any one of us, and therefore
be made habitable, only encourages a form of fatalism which normalizes
going to prison.
The sense that crime
should be punished visibly is almost commonsensical in Zimbabwe.
Mhosva haiori (your crime never rots), is what Zimbabweans say,
no matter how hard a criminal tries to run away from justice. Individuals
live in the hope that they will be able to catch up with people
who have stolen from them, and that they will have them punished.
If the criminal escapes justice, victims often try to enlist the
services of a sangoma in order to ensure that something horrible
happens to the criminal. This is in lieu of lynching or neck-lacing,
or other forms of vigilante justice.
Stories are told of how
a thief stole and killed someone-s goat, and ate it, He woke
up a few weeks later to the sounds of a bleating goat issuing from
his stomach. He visited his victim, and made reparations. Or: a
businessman who ordered someone-s firstborn child to be murdered
so that the body party could be used as muti to attract customers
to his shops. The child-s voice was heard under the counters
of his shops. He too settled the matter out of court.
Nowadays, criminals do
escape harsh sentences, often by bribing a magistrate or two. But
in cases of violent crime, there are two judicial systems. The first
is the formal one, which may convict or pardon a criminal, or fail
to find 'evidence- against a criminal. The second court,
which is even more important, is the court in the people-s
hearts. This court is inherited from the past. It is about culture
and tradition. It is about conscience. People weigh the sentence
meted by a magistrate in the formal courts. They may consider it
too lenient or too harsh, or adequate. But where a criminal escapes
justice, perhaps because the court system is corrupted, the people-s
court, the heart, will force that individual criminal to make peace
with the offended persons. An example: you are driving, and knock
someone down, and he dies. You hire a clever lawyer. The magistrate
finds extenuating circumstances, and you don-t lose your driver-s
license; you get away with a fine. The people-s court has
a powerful hold on you. It is the call to culture. It asks you to
visit the family of the victim. You talk to them, help with funeral
arrangements and pay the costs. But this is not enough; you may
have to engage your family sangoma to help you find rest for the
spirit of the victim. This might involve paying a sizeable herd
of cattle to the victim-s family, and going through a tedious
and expensive self-cleansing ritual in order to rid yourself of
the pangs of guilt. This is in spite of having paid the fine to
the formal court. You can-t argue and say, 'I have already
been tried!-
Stories have been recorded
about how some of the murderous militia that Mugabe is abusing had
to go through these rituals in order to make it back into society,
and this is in spite of the fact that a powerful deity in the form
of Mugabe protects them. It is also true that even veterans of Zimbabwe-s
liberation war, who could easily justify their violent actions in
the bush war of the 1970s, had to go through self-cleansing rituals
in order to find peace with the people-s court.
An individual can also
mete out justice. A magistrate in Beitbridge heard the case of a
man who mounted a donkey and raped it as a way of righting the wrongs
of the beast. The donkey had destroyed his crop of maize and its
owner was nowhere to be seen. Trans-species sex is not permitted
by the Zimbabwean constitution or its culture. So, the man was punished
for using the wrong instrument to obtain justice. It is the ability
to name crime and criminals, and to prescribe appropriate institutions
and instruments to deal with crime that makes Zimbabwe far safer
than South Africa.
Once HIV was
named, and Mugabe laughed loudly at Jacob Zuma-s account of
his shower, the prevalence rates have dropped significantly. The
new Domestic
Violence Act specifies that knowingly infecting someone with
a disease, and specifically HIV/AIDS, will be treated as a prima
facie murder case.
But there is another
more recent development that limits crime in Zimbabwe: the country-s
economic collapse. Pickpockets, for instance, have been made jobless.
There is no money to pick from pockets, as wallets are now carried
on the back or are wrapped around the waist. Purses have become
bigger to accommodate the bricks of banknotes every Zimbabwean has
to move from one place to another. Bank robberies are few and far
between, if they happen at all. A robber would need a two-ton truck
to carry the cash, and they-re not good getaway vehicles.
Further, given the nature of potholes on the roads, high-speed driving
is almost impossible. Carjacking is also minimal as a result, not
only because of the yawning potholes, but also because of the shortage
of fuel. Chances are that the car targeted for carjacking or stealing
has no fuel.
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