ROHR Zimbabwe’s comment on the Zimbabwe Vigil’s 7th anniversary
Thursday, 15 October 2009 21:42
administrator
In a colorful event, hundreds of exiles living in the United Kingdom gathered in traditional fashion to mark the 7th anniversary in existence of the voice of reason which has been calling for the liberation of the people of Zimbabwe from the oppressive rule of Mugabe and his cronies. So is the energy which has characterized the unity of a people determined to speak with one voice for the noble cause of raising awareness against a man made tragedy that has befallen their fellow kinsman under the yoke of Robert Mugabe back home. The Zimbabwe Vigil has been a symbol of protest assuming the watch dog role of not letting things like abuse of the voiceless pass unchallenged as far as the struggle for people’s freedoms is concerned in Zimbabwe. Now partnered with ROHR Zimbabwe, the Zimbabwe Vigil has worked with progressive forces like WOZA, the labor body ZCTU, SAVE Zimbabwe campaign to mention but a few. A blistering culture for the fight for basic freedoms has culminated into a more versatile religion to the London Vigils. Not a single Saturday passes without them converging out of their own evolution to chant songs of hope and mimic the lifestyle of those that have made it possible for Zimbabwe to be in the abyss of malaise since attaining independence from Britain. Since formation, the Zimbabwe Vigil has not looked back but has joined hands with like-minded individuals, organizations, governments to lobby towards the resolve of Zimbabwe’s muiti layered crisis which has been heightened by ZANU PF‘s standing in the way of democratic reform and full implementation of the fragile Global Political Agreement. Amongst those the Vigil has been calling out to hear the plight of the Zimbabwean people is the beleaguered guarantor to the GPA, the Southern African Development Committee (SADC). It is heart breaking that SADC has ignored the calls by the Zimbabwean people for Mugabe to respect human rights, put an end to political persecution, land evasions, culture of impunity and draconian media laws. The Vigil has called upon the United Kingdom government and the European Union to take up a tough stance against all the SADC countries that have been sympathetic and provided a life line to the Robert Mugabe regime by suspending government to government aid and instead channel it to the starving Zimbabweans.
Last Updated on Thursday, 15 October 2009 21:55
ROHR protests at exam fees beyond the reach of students
Monday, 12 October 2009 22:24
administrator
ROHR Zimbabwe is highly concerned with the revelation that three quarters of the 300 000 students set to sit for the landmark ordinary level certificate this November are on the verge of having the four years they invested in preparations and resources put to waste as the examination fees being charged by Zimbabwe Examination Schools Council (ZIMSEC) are beyond the reach of the majority of parents.
We also note with concern that the future of education in Zimbabwe which was once the best in Africa, remains in doubt as the sector is plagued by poor remuneration of workers, mismanagement, shortage of qualified personnel due to the brain drain of qualified workforce to other regional markets, exorbitant school fees structures which have forcible denied students access, deteriorating learning and teaching conditions and other economic challenges.
Government has slept over a back foot reliance on international donors and is now failing to accord the education sector the priority it deserves as the right to education is slowly being relegated to a preserve of the elite.
Government stands to be reminded that education is a basic fundamental human right upon which the next generation’s foundation should be premised. Despite the economic challenges affecting the country, it remains government’s responsibility and prerogative to step up to the challenges besieging the education sector and ensure that the right to education is not denied on the grounds of discriminating against levels of income.
We hold that the extension of the deadline for the payment of the ordinary and advanced level examination is in itself not the solution to the problem but it only serves to prolong it. No student should be barred from sitting for the examinations on the grounds of failing to pay examination fees.
Government has a few days to address the recent strike by ZIMSEC workers, a body responsible for the administering of examinations, in time for examinations scheduled to start in a few weeks. The ministry’s decision to determine a friendly examination fees structure should be more realistic, practical and take into account all the varying issues that parents in different life circles find themselves in especially the plight of a sizeable number of parents working on farms across the country earning below the poverty datum line.
It should also be taken into consideration that most parents are among the 95% unemployed who find it difficult to raise at least US $ 60 for a child to sit for a minimum of six subjects. More so, the introduction of foreign currency has been a challenge especially to the majority of parents residing in the rural areas who depend on subsistence farming as they find themselves battling with money to procure farming inputs. Their plight has also been compounded by the deteriorating rainfall patterns in the last decade.
Staying in line with the Millennium Development Goals of achieving universal primary education, the ministry of education should ensure that the right to education remains equally spread without discrimination on gender against the girl child.
From the information Department of Restoration of Human Rights (ROHR) Zimbabwe
For Peace, Justice and Freedom
Last Updated on Monday, 12 October 2009 22:30
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Activity Reports from Mashonaland Central and Manicaland
Thursday, 08 October 2009 21:18
Gladys Kalonga and Thokozani Bote
Mashonaland Central activity report, 5 – 9 October 2009
Public Hearing – Fact Finding Mission
Introductions
The Bindura fact finding mission was mainly aimed at assessing the situation of the victim villagers who fell victim to eviction from a place they had known as home their entire lives. The foothills farm is the place and the villagers are being evicted on political grounds and specifically because they participated in a ROHR Zimbabwe demonstration and that they are supporters of the MDC. The delegation comprised of Programmes and Networking Director Clifford Hlatywayo, Information and Advocacy Director Ronald Mureverwi, Mashonaland Central Field Officer Gladys Kalonga and MDC Representative Peter Mabika. There were 22 participants at the Ray Suburbs in Bindura. The visit was on Monday 5th October 2009
Aims and objectives of the visit
• Fact finding on the prevailing situation
• Ascertain the nature and extent of problems faced by the evicted families.
• Gather views on how ROHR Zimbabwe could possibly help.
The victims
There are 26 families who were evicted from the foothills farm. The main driving force behind their eviction are the fact that they are MDC members and had taken part in the election times as MDC election agents and that they had participated in the ROHR Zimbabwe demand for Justice and Democracy campaign demonstration in Bindura on 1 December 2008.
Submissions from the victims
From the deliberation done during the fact finding session and from the interviews conducted, it was emphasised that the ZANU PF regime is determined to wipe out any opposition supporters from the community. The victims lamented how the ZANU PF leaders in the area had influenced the decision in support of their eviction citing incidents where the magistrate had been seen at a local hotel with ZANU Pf
leaders and supporters a day before the ruling was made. The victims are suffering much and their children have since dropped out of school owing to lack of income, and the families do not have the basic needs of food and shelter.
Achievements
ROHR Zimbabwe managed to get first hand information on the evictions that are taking place in Bindura. ROHR Zimbabwe also managed to get clear expectations from the evicted families and they also were able to determine the actual causes of the evictions.
Challenges
The evicted families expected the ROHR Zimbabwe delegation to immediately assist them and the fact that the delegation did not have any form of assistance at hand meant that ROHR Zimbabwe did not fulfil
the immediate expectations of the victims.
Recommendations
• Victims be helped with lawyers to represent them in further court sessions
• That family support projects be identified and extended to them
• That there be a programme of assisting them pay school fees of their children
• That they be provided for with books and any other educational support material
Overall rating – very successful
Conclusion
People in Bindura are suffering much at the hands of ZANU Pf despite having signed an agreement and forming a unity government with The MDCs. There are quite a lot of victimisation taking place in Mashonaland central and it seems as if ZANU PF wants to create a previous perception of the province being declared a no go area for opposition forces hence the victimisation of all people perceived to be anti ZANU. This calls for major programmes in the communities which will strengthen the current crop of human rights defenders and empower new ones so that the dream of transforming Zimbabwe into a democracy can be achieved.
For ROHR Zimbabwe Mashonaland Central
Gladys Kalonga (Field Officer)
Manicaland Province Activity Report, 28 September – 02 October 2009
Chipinge South Member of the House of Assembly Hon. Meki Makuyana was suspended from Parliament following his conviction and 18 months imprisonment sentence for kidnapping two ZANU PF supporters last year in Chisuma village of ward 29 in Chipinge South.
The suspension was confirmed by the Clerk of Parliament, Mr. Austin Zvoma who is a ZANU PF loyalist. Hon. Makuyana was convicted together with Chipinge South Councillor for ward 29, Hardwork Masaiti and two other MDC activists Wedzerai Gwenzi and Simon Chaya by Chipinge magistrate Mr. Samuel Zuze who is also a ZANU PF apologist. Hon. Makuyana was suspended without benefits and any other privileges accorded to a Member of Parliament. He no longer attends Parliament sessions and is not allowed to sit in any Parliamentary committees. He is the third Member of Parliament from MDC-T to be suspended from Parliament in Manicaland Province among them Hon Shuwa Mudiwa of Mutare West constituency and Hon Mathew Mlambo of Chipinge East. They are all out on bail pending appeal against both the conviction and sentence.
This has been the barbaric way in which ZANU PF is behaving as it desperately hunts for ways of trimming the opposition’s majority in the august house. Chipinge District, and by extension, Manicaland Province seems to be the main ZANU PF focus and target because since time immemorial, it has been supporting the opposition. The times of Ndabaningi Sithole and ZANU Ndonga bear testimony to this. Although Hon. Makuyana is the third to be suspended from Parliament in the Province, and the second in Chipinge District, other MPs have different cases to answer in courts and as long as there are sympathetic ZANU PF Judges like Zuze, they stand chances of being convicted.
Behaviours like these are sharply against the spirit of the Inter-party political agreement signed between the three main political parties. These MPs do not have real cases but they were merely arrested on trumped up charges so that they could be jailed and open spaces to accommodate ZANU PF people should there be any by-elections which ZANU Pf seeks to terrorise. This can never result in the actual national healing desired by Zimbabweans as those who perpetrated the actual human rights crimes are walking free while the victims are languishing in jails. As ROHR Zimbabwe Manicaland, we demand that those who perpetrated violence for whatever reasons under whosever’s influence should be brought to book. The actual national healing process should be based and built on truth, justice and compensation.
For ROHR Zimbabwe Manicaland
Thokozani Bote (Field Officer)
Programs Department
Last Updated on Thursday, 08 October 2009 21:25
ROHR Zimbabwe holds Public Hearing in Bindura
Thursday, 08 October 2009 01:00
administrator
ROHR Zimbabwe yesterday (5th October) held a public hearing in Bindura to establish facts from the inhabitants on the precipice of an imminent eviction from Foothills farm under the ongoing chaotic farm invasions by ZANU Pf supporters. More than 30 family heads attended the public hearing representing over 700 inhabitants.
It was a nerve racking experience learning the brutal first hand information from a people that have suffered so much pain, agony and loss at the hands of a few callous men that believe they are more superior and deserving than other human beings.
Sitting listening to the testimonies of the worst human rights violations in this day and age seemed like turning back the clock to the horrific slave trade era. To think that men and women over the ages of 65 years could be forced farm labor refused to sink. For what its worthy the justification of the inhuman treatment is premised over political grounds emanating from a clique with war credentials that believes in rewarding itself and holding at ransom those that are deemed to be outcast from the party that brought the liberation struggle to Zimbabwe.
All the victimization and persecution is in itself not the end but a means to an end. The weaponry is denial of the fundamental human rights, right to decent shelter, right to live in peace, right to safe clean water, right to live a dignified life, right to education, right to state security, right to a fair trial, right to decent working conditions, right to life. All these fundamental rights have become a far cry and have since been substituted with a chaotic environment of uncertainty, fear and psychological torture.
The oppressors clearly know that they are fighting people riddled in poverty without resources to hire expensive lawyers. No matter how loud their victims can cry, it falls between the rocks. The police have assumed a pre determined positions in favor of the oppressors.
To that part of the country, the government of national unity is a non event. A participant at the hearing said,’ self proclaimed war liberators like Webster Bepura, cde Sato, Ruston Ngandu and Jacob Chiripanyanga believe that they are still running this country, there is nothing like a government of national unity’ hence the resolve to exercise their power on the vulnerable and trampled.
First it was punishment for participating as voting agents for the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), then for participating in a peaceful march by ROHR Zimbabwe in a campaign to demand democracy and justice from the government and head of state.
Systematic series of trumped up charges on the grounds of theft of farm equipment are the order of the day as punishment for resisting illegal eviction.
An operation to weed out workers who worked for the white farmers followed. Typical of the ZANU Pf hate speech and slogans a discriminating term was coined to refer to those who worked for white farmers and
considered members of the MDC, ‘mabritish.’ Resisting illegal eviction has come with a steep price of a multi faceted man made crisis.
Homes have been destroyed by heartless youth militia, livestock looted, attempts at growing crops has been met by herds of cattle unleashed to graze as deliberate stifling efforts to deny food security, donor aid groups have been barred from giving assistance and school children have not been spared.
Despite all the suffering, the inhabitants of foothills farm have not given up on the place they have known as home their entire lives, a place that is linked to their fore fathers, their birthright. Some had their fathers coming as far as Malawi and Mozambique.
What pains them most is the sacrifice of sweat and blood that they have tendered towards the development of their community let alone the knowledge that the place is designated to be a growth point. Through community owned development schemes the residents molded more than 10 000 bricks towards the building of a school and clinic and suddenly a few individuals impose themselves and demand their ouster because the party they belong to does not subscribe to the 21st century ideals of a democratic society in which people with different political backgrounds can co- exist in peace and harmony. ‘’We cannot suffer because of one new comers who cannot live well with others. We are prepared to work with people who tolerate others for the development of this country” said Luckmore Langton.
ROHR Zimbabwe noted the following appeals that were directed to the government and other well wishers, aid humanitarian organizations, donors and individuals:-
· Need for a fair trial to be heard under the law without discrimination as guaranteed by the Zimbabwean Constitution and International law. The call follows shocking revelations to ROHR Zimbabwe that the judgment made by Judge Chakanyuka on Friday the 2nd of October was passed in the absence of the defendants and defense lawyers were only called to collect a ruling from the clerk of court.
· Need to reverse the unfolding circle of the illegal eviction of farm workers at the hands of the new often violent farm occupiers as this would set in motion a dangerous precedence considering the fact that there are hundreds of families/households facing the same circumstances country wide.
· The Zimbabwe Republic Police should conduct their duties professionally and accept reports without discriminating on political ground, investigate and bring to book criminals who violate the rights of vulnerable citizens like farmers workers with impunity. No one is above the law and every citizen regardless of political affiliation is entitled to the right to state protection.
· Assistance in settling legal fees that are now an excess of US 17 000 stretching from December 2008 when the trial opened. The people in question do not have a sustainable income to cater for their basic requirements such as food let alone legal fees.
· Need for law enforcement agents to put to an end to the intimidation and victimization currently instigated by ZANU Pf supporters on innocent people who are now living in constant fear of their lives.
· Intervention to support food security and providing capacity for small scale sustainable projects to bolster livelihoods and improve standards of leaving. Inhabitants are barred from engaging in small scale gardeningwhich is their only available source of survival. The US $ 10 they earn as salary is a far cry to carter for the daily needs for a standard family 4.
· Providing clean safe water. For more than two years inhabitants have been drinking water from unprotected wells which leaves them in danger of cholera outbreaks and other water borne diseases.
· Ensuring the availability of decent shelter suitable for human beings. Demolished houses are in need of renovation to restore rooftops, windows, doors and electricity. Inhabitants have been discriminated from occupying houses with electricity under the new farm settlers.
· Need to teach the inhabitants about their constitutional and fundamental human rights, how to protect, defend and demand human rights at community level. There is need to provide capacity for the community to assume the watchdog role on human rights abuses and getting involved in governance issues as long term measures aimed towards a culture of respecting human rights.
· Need to initiate counseling programs that encourage psychological healing and eradication of fear.
Financial assistance to ensure the right to education for all children on the farm.
From the information Department of Restoration of Human Rights (ROHR) Zimbabwe
Last Updated on Thursday, 08 October 2009 01:03
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