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Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum Torture By State Agents In Zimbabwe GLOSSARY - ABBREVIATIONS CIO Central Intelligence Organisation CID Criminal Investigation Department MDC Movement for Democratic Change NCA National Constitutional Assembly NGO Non-Governmental Organisation PISI Police Internal Security and Intelligence POSA Public Order and Security Act SI Statutory Instrument (subsidiary legislation) ZANU PF Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front ZBC Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation ZESN Zimbabwe Election Support Network ZNA Zimbabwe National Army ZPS Zimbabwe Prison Service ZRP Zimbabwe Republic Police 4
Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum Torture By State Agents In Zimbabwe BACKGROUND Against the background of the seriously deteriorating human-rights situation in Zimbabwe, there is increasing evidence of the involvement of formal State agencies such as the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP), the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) and the Zimbabwe National Army (ZNA) in the perpetration of gross human-rights violations. In recent months, human-rights organisations have seen a dramatic increase in cases in which State agencies are alleged to have committed human-rights violations. This represents a change in the profile of human rights violations, which hitherto have been allegedly committed mainly by Zanu PF supporters, youth militia and so-called “war veterans”. Recent months have also seen increased hostility by the ZRP towards human-rights organisations.Threats have been made against these organisations by senior Ministers and human-rights defenders have been arrested on what appear to be spurious charges. It is noteworthy that the regime is now seeking to implement restrictive legislation against civil society organisations, requiring them to be registered and in important respects controlled, by the State. When these developments are viewed against the mountain of evidence accumulated by civil society organisations on human-rights violations in Zimbabwe, as well as the government’s promulgation of amnesties for perpetrators of such violations, they lead to the conclusion that the regime is seeking to prevent the reporting of human-rights abuses and to render the perpetrators unaccountable for their actions. Such attempts to avoid accountability must be roundly condemned by all parties, locally, regionally and internationally. The current picture is neither surprising nor unexpected. The Human Rights Forum and its members have been issuing reports over the last four years, pointing out the increasing climate of repression and calling upon the government to take serious steps to redress the situation. These calls have fallen on deaf ears. The increasing involvement of State agencies in the perpetration of gross human rights violations is the focus of this document. It will not seek to describe in detail the many cases in which the ZRP, the CIO and the ZNA have been involved in organised violence and torture, but will draw out the major trends by reference to the many reports already published. It will also draw some conclusions from the data available in the past two years. This report only deals with matters up to August 2002, but it is evident that there have been further cases of police torture since then. Developments subsequent to August 2002 may be dealt with in additional reports of the Human Rights Forum but, as will be seen, the conclusions, based only on a selection of cases from the data up to August 2002, are extremely worrying and require urgent action, both locally and internationally. THE FOOD RIOTS The Food Riots, which occurred in the high-density areas round Harare in early 1998, were the most serious outbreak of violence since the end of the Matabeleland emergency in 1987. As the Minister of Home Affairs himself commented in his address to Parliament on 3 February 1998: 5
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