This week’s decision by Cabinet to investigate the conduct of the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) over its renewed crackdown on civil society is a welcome move that was long overdue.
NewsDay Editorial
It is apparent that the force has become a willing tool of dark political forces.
In the past few weeks police raided ZimRights, Zimbabwe Peace Project in Harare and the National Youth Development Trust (NYDT) in Bulawayo searching for alleged subversive material.
The raids have started to show a pattern because all these non-governmental organisations have initiated programmes to encourage Zimbabweans to register as voters ahead of the constitutional referendum and harmonised elections.
Coincidentally, Police Commissioner-General Augustine Chihuri, in a clear case of professional misconduct, has taken it upon himself to coerce his subordinates to register to vote for Zanu PF.
His crusade tallies with Zanu PF’s strategy to get as many new voters as possible as a strategy to reverse its poor showing in previous elections.
Therefore, Home Affairs co-minister Theresa Makone’s Wednesday announcement that the government is alive to these machinations and is ready to take action must come as relief to civil society and long-suffering voters.
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Makone said she was tasked alongside her counterpart Kembo Mohadi of Zanu PF to investigate the conduct of the law enforcement agents, especially the arbitrary arrest of 40 people in Lupane a fortnight ago.
The potential voters arrested were part of an NYDT- initiated voter education programme. To show that this was brazen harassment, all the villagers were released without any charges being laid against them.The courts also refused to prosecute two NYDT officials because they had not violated any law.
In yesterday’s issue, we also carried a report that the Joint Monitoring and Implementation Committee (Jomic) in Matabeleland North is investigating allegations that some soldiers and police officers barred an MDC activist from working at a school in Binga because of his political affiliation.
The overzealous police officers and soldiers forced Shadreck Mtale to leave his employment at a school in Siabuwa where he was working as a guard claiming that it was a Zanu PF institution.
Jomic was set up by the inclusive government to deal with such violations of the Global Political Agreement and ideally it would have been its responsibility to investigate the police crackdown against civil society.
But it has been proven that the inter-party body’s powers are limited and given that we are now fast approaching a potentially highly emotive election, the Cabinet decision to task the ministers to handle the investigations was well thought out.
The elements behind the police raids on civil society groups are unrepentant and it is appropriate that they are dealt with at the highest level. Those without short memories have not forgotten the abductions and torture of civil society activists ahead of the bloody 2008 elections.
The rogue elements must be dealt with now before they spread their malice and plunge us back into that madness. The investigations by the two ministers must be thorough and transparent. The nation awaits their findings with interest. Here is an early test case.
