Author: TSA Press

First published by ISS Today

A year ago on 1 August 2018, Zimbabwean soldiers killed six civilians on the streets of Harare. The date also marks the moment President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s carefully laid plans started to unravel.

To encourage investment, Mnangagwa had intended to show a commitment to democracy through an election in July 2018 which would pass as halfway respectable. He almost succeeded, until violent protesters took to the streets of Harare demanding the immediate release of the election results.

Under the command of Brigadier-General Anselem Sanyatwe, soldiers were deployed to contain the situation. They did so by firing live ammunition at fleeing and terrified civilians who happened to be in the city centre at the time. When the smoke cleared, the six dead lay in pools of blood before the cameras of the international media who had gathered to report on the polls.

Everyone wanted to know who was to blame for the deployment of armed soldiers against civilians, presenting the administration with a dilemma. If government admitted that this was the decision of defence minister and former Zimbabwe Defence Forces commander Constantino Chiwenga, who had led the November 2017 “coup” that brought Mnangagwa to power, this would be to throw an important ally under the bus.

Under Zimbabwe’s new constitution, the military can only be deployed for public order purposes with the authority of the president. Without such authority, Chiwenga’s decision would have been unlawful. If presidential authority had been given, the blood of the six was on Mnangagwa’s hands.

Mnangagwa remained silent on the question of authorisation, avoiding such awkward questions by moving quickly to establish a commission of inquiry. He appointed seven commissioners who would be required, in part, to investigate his own conduct. To give the commission a veneer of respectability, four of the seven were from outside Zimbabwe.

The commission was headed by former South African president Kgalema Motlanthe. That the commission’s task was damage control was made apparent by the inclusion among the commissioners of well-known Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front apologist Charity Manyeruke, and by the fact that one of the terms of reference of the commission was to determine what “necessitated” the deployment of soldiers thus foreclosing inquiry into a crucial aspect of the events.

The result was a report tailor-made to Mnangagwa’s requirements. The report commences by contrasting Mnangagwa’s calls for peace before the elections, with what is called ‘overwhelming video evidence’ of Movement for Democratic Change-Alliance (MDC-A) leader Nelson Chamisa inciting violence.

As an example, the report references a video of a rural rally addressed by Chamisa and, presumably, this video was selected as being the most illustrative. Clicking on the link given in the pdf of the report takes one back to the report online and not to the expected video clip.

A video of the entire rally is, however, available on YouTube. Chamisa speaks entirely in Shona, so only the three Zimbabwean commissioners could have understood what he said. Chamisa does not say the words ‘quoted’ in the report or anything even remotely similar.

Other video evidence in this regard referred to by the commissioners is similarly defective. Yet this “evidence” clearly informed the finding by the commission that the MDC-A was responsible for the violent demonstration and that it was pre-planned.

This isn’t the only key finding based on patently fabricated evidence. The commission found that the troops had been deployed in accordance with constitutional requirements. For this, they accepted a paper trail supplied by the government.

This comprised a letter by the district police chief on the ground to the provincial police chief; a letter from the commissioner-general of police to the home affairs minister; and then a letter from the home affairs minister to Chiwenga as the defence minister. These letters all followed the procedure set out in a section of Zimbabwe’s public order legislation – a section rendered void by the later constitutional requirement that presidential authority was necessary.

The government dealt with that problem by adding three more letters: one from Chiwenga to the president seeking the necessary authority; a second from Chiwenga to the commander of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces stating that he had obtained the necessary presidential authority, copied to the home affairs minister; and a third from the latter to the police chief advising of the authorisation. Note the gap in the paper trail at this point.

There is no letter from the president, so we just have Chiwenga’s word for the authorisation, leaving it open to Mnangagwa to deny this if necessary. The troops were deployed at 2.30pm. The request for deployment was made at 1pm. So the commissioners were asked to believe that all six letters were written, printed and hand-delivered in the space of 90 minutes.

That is 15 minutes per letter, with the letters containing citations of the relevant sections of the law and constitution and setting out the events of the morning. Three of the four letters requesting deployment contain the same grammatical error. They were obviously generated ex post facto and, it seems likely, on the advice of the attorney-general.

The recommendations of the commission are no less disingenuous. They include that the perpetrators of crimes on 1 August be prosecuted. In the context of the report, this refers to the demonstrators who destroyed property. And the soldiers who killed people? They are to be regarded as in “breach of discipline”, to be identified by ‘internal military processes’ and “sanctioned”. Even this much has not happened.

Before 1 August 2018, such was the eagerness of the western international community to see an end to the Zimbabwe crisis that it appeared prepared to accept cosmetic changes intended to signal a move towards reform. No more. The United States has ignored the commission’s actual recommendations, and demanded implementation of the report through the criminal prosecution of the soldiers responsible for the killing.

To mark the anniversary, and in the absence of any action by the Government of Zimbabwe, they have slapped a travel ban on Sanyatwe who commanded the soldiers. The commissioners should be marking the anniversary by hanging their heads in shame. DM3

Derek Matyszak is a senior researcher; Peace Operations and Peacebuilding, ISS

Post published in: Featured

“I am not a street kid. I come here to sell my things, go home and use the money to buy food,” said Tanyaradzwa, who did not give his last name to protect his privacy.

With power cuts lasting 19 hours per day, debilitating water shortages, inflation at 175 percent and many basic items in scarce supply, Zimbabwe’s children are the silent victims of the once-prosperous southern African country’s debilitating economic downfall.

For his family of six to eat, Tanyaradzwa must hang around the bar at the popular Elizabeth Hotel in hopes of cashing in on afternoon drinkers and passers-by who want to buy cigarettes, he said.
His parents run a small vegetable stall in Glen View, a working class residential area, but what they make is hardly enough to pay the bills, let alone buy food, he said.
Many people can no longer afford to put food on the table without the help of their children — no matter how young.

Children are forced to juggle between school demands and supplementing the family income through street vending or selling at small stalls.
“These holidays just mean more work. There is no break, because I now have no excuse not to work every day,” said Tanyaradzwa.

On the adjacent, busy street named after former longtime ruler Robert Mugabe, children joined elders pushing fruit and vegetable carts. Some kids held cardboard boxes selling items ranging from cigarettes, cell phone airtime, sweets and clothing.

According to Mercy Mpata, a teachers’ representative, the demands are taking many children’s focus away from school.

“There is a lot of absenteeism because the children have a lot on their plate,” said Mpata, the spokeswoman for the Association of Rural Teachers of Zimbabwe.

“Even if they come (to school), they are either sleepy or, instead of concentrating on school work they are busy thinking ‘Where will we get the next meal if I don’t sell enough items after school today?’“
Teachers have their own grievances. They are paid the equivalent of about $50 a month and, like the rest of the civil service, say they cannot live on those wages, which they call “slave salaries.”

“We live in the community. We interact with these children and their parents. They are like family. That’s why we always try to give it our all … but hungry teachers teaching hungry children, that’s tough,” said Mpata.
The food situation is dire in Zimbabwe, with about a third of the country’s 17 million people being food insecure due to drought and the worsening economy, according to a report released this month by UN agencies, international aid organizations and the government.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa declared the drought a national disaster on Tuesday. On the same day, the UN launched a $331 million appeal to mitigate the unfolding disaster. Children, according to the appeal, are some of the hardest hit. Close to 160,000 children and adolescents will need welfare and child protection services, according to the UN.

“There is a risk that children and adolescents will increasingly experience psychosocial distress as some are likely to drop out of school, pushed away from home to seek employment,” said the UN in its appeal for funds.
Expectations were high that Zimbabwe’s economy would grow following Mugabe’s departure at the end of 2017. But the economy did not take off and will contract 3 percent this year, Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube, said this month.
After inflation reached a decade-high of 175.6 percent last month, Ncube suspended the country’s monthly inflation reports, saying that last year’s prices were in US dollars and now they are in Zimbabwe’s currency, introduced in June, so they are not comparable.

However, that has not stopped schools from feeling the pinch of rising prices and eroding incomes. For the coming school term, some boarding schools are asking parents to provide food instead of paying school fee increases.
But that’s just for the fortunate children who still have parents and guardians able to afford such boarding facilities.

For many children such as Tanyaradzwa, juggling between school and eking out a living takes a toll, even as they desperately hold on to bouts of hope.

“I have dreams, big ones,” he said, smiling. “I want to be a lawyer.”
To achieve that dream, he is sacrificing much of his childhood.
“There is no time to play with friends,” he said. “The work, the school, it takes all of my time.”

The government announced that the finance minister had concluded the loan agreements in the last few months, the paper says.

But the $23m and $19.5m loans obtained from the Export-Import Bank of India are unlikely to immediately ease rolling blackouts.

The paper says the loans are for upgrading power plants in Bulawayo and Hwange.

Since May, power has only been available in Zimbabwe for seven hours each day, coming on late at night.

Business representatives believe the blackouts have cost the country $200m in lost revenue.

The government has blamed a drought that has led to low water levels at the major hydro-electric dam, Kariba.

It also has little financial capacity to import all its power needs.

Post published in: Business

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