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NewsDay

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Comment: Police exhibit brutality again

Columnists
The Zimbabwe Republic Police gets very bitter when it is accused of unprofessionalism and, especially, brutality on civilians. Each time they make loud claims their professionalism is internationally acclaimed despite charges of legendary brutality by their victims. The difficulty in accepting claims the Commissioner General’s boys live up to the Police Charter and that their […]

The Zimbabwe Republic Police gets very bitter when it is accused of unprofessionalism and, especially, brutality on civilians.

Each time they make loud claims their professionalism is internationally acclaimed despite charges of legendary brutality by their victims.

The difficulty in accepting claims the Commissioner General’s boys live up to the Police Charter and that their hands are squeaky clean is informed by some of the glaring evidence they leave littered everywhere in their wake.

The fact that we have units from our police force conscripted into United Nations peacekeeping missions does not necessarily mean then that our law enforcement agents are professional and act professionally away and at home.

Knowing how to be professional and acting professionally are two different things that can be exhibited differently by the same person.

We have no doubt our police force is trained to be professional — so professionally its members become shining stars when they are deployed on foreign missions.

We have no doubt too they are able to act similarly professionally at home if they are allowed to apply their training without interference.

Questions begin to be asked when ugly scenarios such as obtained over the weekend, where elderly mourners from villages far out of the capital are all of a sudden exposed to ruthless police brutality.

A commuter omnibus driver, Jack Ndeketeya, died along with seven others when his vehicle ploughed into a haulage truck in a tragic accident along the Harare-Bulawayo Road last week.

Ndeketeya happened to be an MDC-T activist. His relatives, who included his parents and grandparents, travelled to Harare from their rural home to mourn and bury him.

On their way to the cemetery, Ndeketeya’s political comrades apparently sang him party send-off songs and they passed through the Boka Tobacco Auction Floors — singing MDC-T songs.

According to them, Zanu PF supporters, who were part of an irritable lot that has spent many days waiting in unmoving queues to sell their tobacco, started pelting them with stones, sparking skirmishes.

The little war continued after the burial when mourners were on their way back from the cemetery.

Police later arrested and detained 78 mourners whom they accused of provoking farmers at the auction floors. Among those arrested were the deceased Ndeketeya’s parents and grandparents.

They are not political activists and Ndeketeya’s father was unwell, but they were all thrown into police cells for at least two days. Some of them were still in detention and appeared in court Monday.

Without questioning the probability of who might have provoked who between bereaved mourners on their way to the cemetery and restive farmers already irritated by a lengthy stay and idleness at the auction floors, suspecting — reasonably enough to throw in cells — elderly rural folk who have just lost their son of violence just does not sound professional.

That beside the point, the treatment that these “prisoners” received is hardly indicative of professionalism.

Esme Banda, the 65-year old grandmother of the late kombi driver, said police forced the women to remove their jerseys, bras and shoes before they were thrown into cold cells.

Billiart Ndeketeya, the late driver’s father, said he was already sick when he was arrested.

He was nonetheless made to sleep with no blanket and he spent the nights “sitting”. His legs were swollen when NewsDay visited him on Sunday.

Our “professional” police force could certainly have done better in both determining the cause of the fracas and identifying victims from culprits and, of course, they could not have believed, reasonably enough to detain, that the parents and grandparents of the deceased — rural folk — who are unfamiliar with Harare or its political volatility, could have gone out of their way to throw rocks at farmers waiting to sell their tobacco.