UN rights body to tackle Mugabe

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By Staff Reporter
16/03/04
PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe’s atrocious human rights record will come under the microscopic gaze of the UN Human Rights Commission which is meeting in Geneva for the next six weeks.

It will be the second time that the UNHRC considered the crisis in Zimbabwe after South Africa in 2002 blocked an attempt by the British to pass a resolution calling on President Mugabe to reform.

The move comes in the same week that the US State Department released a devastating report detailing extra judicial killings and government-sanctioned violence in Zimbabwe.

The 26-page report seen by New Zimbabwe.com accuses police, the army and intelligence services of participating or providing transport as well as other logistical support to the perpetrators of political violence

"Security forces committed extra judicial killings….government youth militias tortured, beat, raped, and otherwise abused people and some persons died from their injuries," said the report titled Country (Zimbabwe) Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2003 and released by the US Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labour.

The UN commissioners’ 60th annual meeting in Geneva will home-in on the situation in Zimbabwe and a strong statement of condemnation is expected after human rights groups warned the body risked irrelevance if it continued to ignore Zimbabwe.

"Time and time again, the Commission has turned a blind eye to human rights violations and allowed perpetrators to operate with impunity,” Amnesty International secretary-general Irene Khan said ahead of the meeting which opened Monday.

“And if it is not willing to confront the major human rights challenges of the world, it will be sidelined,” she said.

Adrien-Claude Zoller of the Swiss NGO, Geneva for Human Rights said the UN body – which is charged with upholding and denouncing human rights violations – had lost sight of its mandate.

“The Commission has become a chamber of impunity, with the judges and the accused sitting on the same bench," Zoller thundered.

But Zoller worries that suggestions put forward by developing countries to move away from “naming and shaming” countries – in favour of a slap on the wrist and more technical and cooperative assistance – could weaken the Commission’s position.

“Condemnation is a must when massive human rights abuses have been committed… Without it, the Commission will no longer have a raison d’être,” Zoller said.

“It’s ridiculous that members of the Commission might even consider no longer adopting resolutions on countries,” he added. “The only way for them to uphold their mandate is to denounce violations, while at the same time providing support.”

The human rights groups have demanded a debate on the human rights record of several other individual countries.

“When you look around the world, you see a battering of human rights in Iraq, Afghanistan, Congo, China, Chechnya, Zimbabwe, Sudan, Saudi Arabia and now Haiti,” Khan said. “And where is the Commission in all of this?”

The British Conservative party led by its foreign secretary Michael Ancram has urged the government there to make another attempt at getting a resolution on Zimbabwe. But while the response from the UK government has been lukewarm, the US quietly released its damning report to coincide with the UNHRC session which opened Monday.

The report also accused Mugabe's government of restricting freedom of the Press by shutting down the country's sole independent daily paper, The Daily News, academic freedom, right of association for political organisations and viola-ting worker rights.

During the course of the year, a number of journalists, mostly from the privately-owned media and foreign correspondents, have been harassed and arrested for publishing articles perceived to be anti-government.

"The government continued to restrict freedom of speech and the Press; closing down the only independent daily newspaper, beat, intimidated, arrested and prosecuted journalists who published anti-government articles," it said

The report said the judiciary was not spared as judges and magistrates have been attacked for handing down judgments against the ruling party while detained persons were not allowed prompt or regular access to their lawyers.

"Several attorneys were denied access to their clients during the course of the year ... They complained that police officers were obstructive and verbally and physically abusive," it says.

The report notes that during the year, Zanu PF supporters and war veterans, with material support from the government, expanded the occupation of commercial farms, "and in some cases killed, abducted, tortured, beat-up, abused, raped and threatened the farm owners, including anyone believed to be sympathetic to the opposition".

The farm invasions by war veterans and Mugabe's supporters are largely blamed for the current food crisis facing the country, once the breadbasket of Southern Africa.
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