So flawed are some of its conclusions, including the assertion that there is low intensity civil war in Zimbabwe. Its over-reliance on Zanu PF propaganda mouthpieces like the Herald, Zanu PF aligned political analysts like Joseph Kurebwa and its clear bias towards Zanu PF, including the assertion that returning kids of the murderous regime’s officials from western universities is tantamount to violating their human rights, is shocking.

In short, any intellectual worth his salt is persuaded to conclude that the garbage packaged as a report is clearly the work of the Zimbabwe central intelligence organization in cahoots with the South African President’s office.

The so called report raises alarm when it claims that there is a low intensity civil war in Zimbabwe. It shockingly, without any evidence other than Zanu PF propaganda from the Herald, concludes that the MDC is now retaliating against Zanu PF through what it calls the establishment of Democratic Resistance Committees (DRC).

However, for anyone who is clearly aware about the Zimbabwean reality today, this is just trying to give Zanu PF ammunition to justify their murderous campaign against an unarmed populace whose crime was to vote for the MDC in March 2008. The so-called DRC are clearly non-existent beyond the imagination of the Zanu PF mouthpiece, the Herald and Police Commissioner, Chihuri.

The reality is that what is happening in Zimbabwe is a war against the people by the security forces, Zanu PF militia and the central intelligence organisation and the so-called war veterans. How can the Research Council claim that MDC is now organising retaliations when all its structures from village level have been decimated? Who will organise the non-existent DRCs when the whole MDC leadership is on the run or in hiding? This is what is called low level genocide and not civil war. It is fundamentally embarrassing for a so called Research Council to fail to grasp such a simple fact.

It is Zanu PF that has the weapons, the state machinery and the institutional memory of violence inherited from the armed liberation struggle. The violence in Zimbabwe is one sided and specifically targeted at all the areas where Zanu PF lost in the March elections.

As a Research Council, one would have expected the authors of the dubious report to verify their facts before making sensational allegations that have no substance. Any self respecting Research Council that relies on crude and raw propaganda from such sources as the Herald without making efforts to triangulate that information has clearly lost the legitimacy to claim that it is a research council. The so called Human Sciences Research Council must be careful not to unwittingly make itself an accomplice in the horrific genocide that is now taking place in Zimbabwe.

In its analysis, particularly about the internal Zimbabwean politics, it relies heavily on discredited political analysts like Joseph Kurebwa who is a Zanu PF cadre and strategist. One of the cardinal principles of research which is even appreciated by an average first year university student is the need to incorporate divergent views. To this end, the so called Human Sciences Research Council should have also solicited the views of respected political analysts like John Makumbe who has written widely about the Zimbabwean crisis rather than using Kurebwa as if he is the only one with monopoly over political analysis in Zimbabwe.

In contemporary democratic society, civil society plays a fundamental role in promoting democracy and good governance as well as promoting peace. It is clearly laughable to realise that no views of the civil society that is in the trenches in Zimbabwe like the National Constitutional Assembly, Women of Zimbabwe Arise, Zimbabwe National Students Union, Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition, Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions etc were ever sought. Surely any research council that ignores civil society in penning an agenda of democratic peace in the 21st century clearly exposes that it’s led by people suffering from policy kwashiorkor who must just shut up.

The report also wastes vital space concentrating on trivialities. It actually reveals its Zanu PF parentage by campaigning for the lifting of educational sanctions against kids of the regime as done by Australia. It mourns that banishing these kids from universities in the west is tantamount to violating their rights. This is clearly absurd. Instead of articulating the rights of many Zimbabwean students who can no longer afford to go to school as a result of mismanagement by Zanu PF and violence on teachers who have fled schools, the reports mourns the right of Zanu PF murderers to have their kids in Australia.

Zanu PF has been preaching day and night that the west is racist, so why should they expose their kids to racism in the west when there are so many Universities in Africa, China and Malasyia? Is it not because they destroyed education in Zimbabwe and don’t have confidence in African and Chinese Universities? Why then are they deriding Morgan Tsvangirai for seeking refuge at the Dutch instead of an African embassy when they are actually crying to have their kids remain in Europe and not in Universities in Africa? Is it not the Zanu PF double standards which escape the researchers of the report?

Why did the researchers not concentrate on real issues like the plight of thousands of young women that are being raped and held as sex slaves at militia bases that have been created by the Mugabe regime? To the researchers, these young women who are being gang raped and infected with AIDS are not important and have no rights. To the researchers, the rights of these thousands of women who are being violated are lesser than the rights of Zanu PF kids to be in Universities in the west. What rank madness has gripped some of these research councils?

It is important to say that institutions of research must uphold the cardinal principles of pecuniary transparency and accountability as well as ethics rather than shamefully allowing themselves to be used as guinea pigs in advancing the agenda of a rogue regime.Without a shadow of doubt, the report should be entitled, “Destroying Zimbabwe, An Agenda for Mugabe and Mbeki”.