I've done a number of diaries on the wretched state of the African nation of Zimbabwe. My most recent is about the death of Susan Tsvangirai, wife of the newly sworn in Prime Minister, Morgan Tsvangirai after their car was hit head-on by a truck. Many suspect this action was foul play on behalf of President Robert Mugabe's party, ZANU-PF, in attempt to get rid of the real winner of last year's presidential election.
Well, a front page New York Times story today revealed another disturbing trend in that nation. Some of the very people who have committed the worst atrocities are now trying to get amnesty for their past crimes by using intimidation, abductions, arrests, and torture.
The world cannot allow this to happen.
Just in case you don't know about Robert Mugabe, let me say this unequivocally: Robert Mugabe is a thug whose presence has, and continues to, hurt the people of Zimbabwe.
We saw this most clearly demonstrated last year during Zimbabwe's fraudulent elections. Morgan Tsvangirai, a popular reformist, was running against Robert Mugabe, under whose regime the country had fallen into a massive economic crisis underscored by intense hyperinflation. It was clear that in the first round of voting, Tsvangirai had earned more votes than Mugabe. After a month of likely tampering, the results were announced, and while Tsvangirai had amassed more votes, it was claimed that hadn't gotten a majority of them, and so a run-off was scheduled. It was during this waiting period that Mugabe's party unleashed horrific violence on Tsvangirai's supporters, and he was forced to withdraw from the contest. Perhaps to maintain some shred of legitimacy within his government, Mugabe agreed to a "power-sharing agreement" in which Tsvangirai took the reigns as Prime Minister with Mugabe maintaining his Presidency. This arrangement is likely as much of a sham as the election.
But now that Mugabe is near the end of his life at age 85, and the opposition has a majority in Parliament that can investigate crimes such as political violence as well as the corruption in Mugabe's government, members of the ZANU-PF, Mugabe's party, are terrified of being brought to justice. And so they're trying to get amnesty.
First of all, let's review some of the crimes they're probably guilty of:
The crimes committed to entrench Mr. Mugabe’s rule date back to the 1980s, when thousands of civilians from Zimbabwe’s Ndebele minority in Matabeleland were killed by the notorious North Korean-trained Fifth Army brigade, according to historians. Among the Ndebele, the tears of the living must be shed to release the souls of the dead. But the Fifth Brigade insisted that there be no mourning for those they killed, and in some cases shot family members because they wept, according to "Breaking the Silence," a 1997 investigation based on the testimonies of more than 1,000 witnesses.
Other political crimes include widespread attacks on the opposition in 2000, 2002 and 2005, and most gruesomely last year. Beyond that, a vast 2005 slum clearance effort known as Operation Murambatsvina, or Get Rid of the Filth, drove 700,000 people in opposition bastions from their homes.
Last year, close to 200 people were killed, mostly before the June presidential runoff between Mr. Mugabe and the opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, and thousands were tortured in state-sponsored attacks, but so far no one has been prosecuted, according to a State Department human rights report released in February.
Well, now it's clear why they want amnesty: they'd be facing some very serious charges if ever brought to justice.
So what are they doing to try and stop the opposition from investigating them? For one, they're accusing some of the opposition officials of trying to overthrow the president, so they can use this supposed plot as leverage to gain amnesty. In addition to these corrupt trumped up charges, they're resorting to even more sinister means of getting amnesty.
Opposition officials have been kept in prison on such charges as treason and terrorism. Many are being abducted and tortured into making false confessions that they were involved in bombing plots or trying to overthrow Mugabe. There are a couple specific accounts that highlight just how desperate and deranged members of the ZANU-PF are willing to go to avoid prosecution:
Chris Dhlamini, the opposition’s director of security, was hung upside down from a tree and dropped on his head, as well as submerged in water until he believed he would drown. His interrogators tried to get him to implicate Mr. Tsvangirai, he said.
Fidelis Charamba, a 73-year-old local opposition official, said he was pushed into a deep freezer and had boiling water poured over his genitals.
For its part, the MDC, the opposition party, has refused to budge so far:
When asked about amnesty, this was one response:
"I’d rather rot in hell than agree to anything like that," said Roy Bennett, the opposition’s third-highest ranking official.
And that's good news so far. But we saw how far Robert Mugabe's government is willing to go to have its way just in the past election. And so I fear that without outside pressure, the situation in Zimbabwe will decay further.
In the UN, both China and Russia have blocked any attempt at sanctions against Zimbabwe. Perhaps if there was enough international outrage, these countries might back away from their support of this corrupt government and allow real action to be taken against it. I would love to see President Obama or Secretary of State Clinton speak out on the abuses in Zimbabwe and help pressure the UN into sanctions. The more visible this issue is, the more likely something can be accomplished.
And just in case you need another reminder as to how bad Robert Mugabe's government has made the country, I'd suggest you look at this very sad diary.
The situation in Zimbabwe is so depressing to me because it seems there's seemingly so little discourse about it in the US: perhaps because it's not in the Middle East, we do not consider it a very important international crisis. But as fellow human beings, we should care.