Not many people believed it could be real — President Robert Mugabe’s assurance, conviction and promise of peaceful “non-violent” elections. It is not just Zimbabweans who have every election time borne the brunt of political violence, that saw the peace prospects as too good to be true.
Tangai Chipangura
The international community gave Mugabe the benefit of the doubt, but many questioned the sincerity and capability of his party to abandon violence. Botswana leader Ian Khama did not mince his words. He said the characters and the apparatus of violence were still out there waiting a repeat of 2008.
Everybody feared something would go wrong at some point; but not many thought it would be so early.
The death of 12-year-old Christpowers Maisiri, who was burnt to death in a house inferno last week, has been officially declared by the police an act of God. The police said their investigations have ruled out foul play — let alone politically-motivated violence.
There is no doubt this is one of the incidents where the police have exhibited unprecedented investigative efficiency — conclusively delivering a “no foul play” verdict within days of probing — given the time they have taken to investigate causes of such massive blasts as the Zengeza explosion that killed five people and ripped through several houses. Other than telling us the blast was caused by explosives, the police have up to now not said what explosive it was.
In the Christpowers tragedy, the police have simply ruled out foul play because they said they could not find traces of a petrol bomb — which villagers had suspected. The police investigations have, however, not established what then caused the explosion that the Maisiri family heard before the fire. They have simply told us there were bags of fertiliser and some tobacco chemicals in the house.
It would have been critical for them to tell Zimbabweans whether a bag of fertiliser lying in a house would explode after catching fire — or if tobacco chemicals would aid such an explosion. They did not say if their forensic investigations established the fertiliser had actually exploded after apparently being burnt by a paraffin lamp allegedly left alight in the house by Christpowers and his siblings.
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The fertiliser was in four bags — not airtight or sealed containers — and there was a single explosion heard. Apparently after the explosion, some of the fertiliser still remained at the scene, giving the police valuable leads.
Christpowers’ mother Beauty Muunganirwa yesterday said the police were not being truthful that the fire could have been started by a paraffin lamp. She said the family had last used paraffin over three years ago and had since then always used battery power for lighting. She said the paraffin lamps the police claimed to be the cause of the fire were rusty old items which had last been used many years ago and she had told the investigations exactly that.
Muunganirwa said she now feared for her life following visits to the village by strange people driving in different cars claiming to be looking for her although she was always at her house.
The MDC-T has scoffed at the police findings saying they are false and meant to cover up a clear case of politically-motivated murder perpetrated by Zanu PF.
They have demanded independent investigations because they say the Zimbabwe Republic Police is partisan and heavily compromised. Their argument is instructed by the fact that police boss, Commissioner-General Augustine Chihuri, has publicly declared he is a staunch member of Zanu PF.
Political analysts argue that a partisan police chief could not send his charges to expose his own party to international outrage. Another argument is that the police have declined to arrest the people whose names were supplied to the police as suspects in the Christpowers murder although they always arrest with lightning speed, suspects in cases where the MDC-T is even vaguely implicated.
Soon after the Headlands tragedy, police warned people against making premature conclusion of foul play. Leader of Zanu PF, President Robert Mugabe, also issued the same warning during his birthday interview and went on to deny his party was violent at his birthday bash in Bindura on Saturday. He said the MDC-T was out to soil the image of his party by holding Zanu PF responsible for every death in the country. And blamed the media of publishing articles that portrayed his party as violent — even though the articles may be based on interviews with witnesses.
A day after the President’s declaration of his party’s innocence, police spokesperson Assistant Commissioner Charity Charamba called a Press conference to announce that police had concluded their investigations and ruled out foul play in the death of young Christpowers.
