IF images released by the Dzamara family on Monday of a man in captivity they claimed to be the missing human rights activist, Itai Dzamara, are at all his, President Robert Mugabe has some explanation to make.
NewsDay Comment
The images attest to the brutality and callousness of a cruel political establishment that claims to be a democracy, yet brooks no criticism from progressive democratic forces.
The grainy picture showed a person, the family believes to be Dzamara in captivity sitting on the floor with hands tied behind his back, while his head was draped in a bandage-like white cloth.
Itai was abducted without trace on March 9, 2015 near his home in Harare.
Fifteen months is indeed a long time for someone to be held in secret captivity, particularly in the inhuman conditions portrayed in the said picture. It is clear that no amount of propaganda will silence the voice of Itai as justice demands that he be released and returned to his young family, which has been grieving for too long.
Without indications of when the picture was taken, one can only hope that Itai is still alive. What makes this whole saga curious is that the police have made no major headway in solving the Dzamara conundrum.
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Yet, they have untangled other simple cases of disappearances, hence the question that continuously begs an answer is — why Itai of all the people?
One cannot escape the temptation to believe, as his young brother Patson has constantly claimed, that the State security apparatus are involved in his disappearance, which is probably why it only took a court judgment for the police to start serious investigations into the matter.
The police’s continued reluctance gives the impression that they will not be bothered to do much as they already probably know where he is and can only act on instructions from somewhere high up there.
Enforced disappearances in Zimbabwe have been a cause for concern over many years and it is about time that they end so that the country becomes a truly democratic state for which thousands paid with their lives during the liberation struggle.
The Dzamara saga is only a tip of the iceberg, pointing to a much bigger problem and as English playwright William Shakespeare would say in Hamlet, indeed “something is rotten in Denmark”.
Zimbabwe is crying out for a new political dispensation that would pave way for the turnaround of its economic fortunes. The whole establishment demands an overhaul so that we can start afresh from where we lost the plot as a nation.
Indeed the country had so much potential, hope and promise, but has been rundown by a coterie of corrupt, power-hungry and selfish Zanu PF individuals.
Mugabe and his coterie of hangers-on must be warned that in due time they will be held accountable for all these shenanigans.
