African Union slams Zimbabwe rights abuses

African Union slams Zimbabwe rights abuses

STENFORD MOYO

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By Agencies

THE African Union has lambasted President Robert Mugabe's government for flagrant human rights abuses. It is Africa's most damning condemnation of Zimbabwe yet.

A report adopted by the AU executive council on Saturday slams the government for the arrests and torture of opposition members of parliament and human rights lawyers, the arrests of journalists, the stifling of freedom of expression and clampdowns on other civil liberties. This is the harshest criticism Mugabe has had to bear from his continental peers.

The report was adopted on Saturday by the AU's executive council, which comprises foreign ministers of the 53 member states, despite strong opposition from Zimbabwe.

It was compiled by the AU's African Commission on Human and People's Rights, which sent a mission to Zimbabwe from June 24 to 28 2002, shortly after the presidential elections.

The report was apparently not submitted to the AU's 2003 summit because it had not been translated into French.

It will now be considered by the AU's annual summit of heads of state and government that begins in Addis Ababa on Tuesday.

After speaking to victims of political violence and other victims of torture in Zimbabwe, the mission said that "at the very least" human rights violations and arbitrary arrests had occurred.

It was particularly alarmed by the arrest of Stenford Moyo, the president of the Law Society in Zimbabwe. "The mission is prepared and able to rule that the government cannot wash its hands from responsibility for all these happenings," read the report.

"It is evident that a highly charged atmosphere has been prevailing, many land activists undertook their illegal actions in the expectation that government was understanding and that police would not act against them.

"Government did not act soon enough and firmly enough against those guilty of gross criminal acts.

"By its statements and political rhetoric, and by its failure at critical moments to uphold the rule of law, the government failed to chart a path that signalled a commitment to the rule of law," the report said.

The mission was not able to find definitively that the human rights violations were part of an orchestrated plan by the Zanu-PF government. But the report said the Zimbabwean state did acknowledge to the observers that "excesses did occur".

Stan Mudenge, the Zimbabwean foreign minister, protested vehemently against the adoption of the report at the meeting on Saturday, stating that the Zimbabwean government had not been given an opportunity to review and respond to the report.

But Oluyemi Adeniji, the chairperson of the AU executive council, and Oluyemi Adeniji, Nigeria's foreign minister, disagreed and allowed the report to stand, with the minister's objections noted.

The report recommended that Zimbabwe needed mediators to help it "withdraw from the precipice".

It suggested that religious organisations were best suited to this task and further suggested that "the media needs to be freed from the shackles of control to voice opinions and reflect societal beliefs freely".

The report also called for a repeal of draconian laws and asked the government to abide by the judgments of the supreme court, which should be free of political pressure.

The report said the whole the mission found Zimbabwean society to be highly polarised.

"The land question is not in itself the cause of division. It appears that at the heart is a society in search of the means for change and divided about how best to achieve change after two decades of dominance by a political party that carried the hopes and aspirations of the people of Zimbabwe through the liberation struggle into independence," the report said. - Foreign Service
From Sunday Independent
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