Chronicle Editor
EDITOR: The Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission is not a non-governmental organisation.
It is a Constitutional Commission established in terms of section 242 of the 2013 Constitution to promote awareness, protection, development and attainment of human rights and freedoms in Zimbabwe.
It carries out investigations into the human rights situation in the country and investigates complaints of human rights abuses, and seeks redress including the prosecution of offenders.
It also publishes reports on its human rights monitoring activities.
Again, the ZHRC is not an NGO. This is important.
In a polarised political environment such as ours, where cashvists (activists for hire, who survive on donor funding) use NGOs to propagate a narrative that is so openly partisan that they are unable to be taken seriously by Government, there is a need for an objective yet independent institution that can speak the human rights language without emotion, distortion or an ulterior motive to government.
Governments everywhere must operate on a checks-and-balances system, and it is obvious why.
Despite how much we as a nation like to see Government embodied in one person (the President), the truth is that Government is a behemoth which is made up of the sum total of everyone playing a part in it.
And, like it or not, some people inside “government’ do commit human rights abuses, and it is necessary that citizens be protected from such people.
It is to independent commissions such as the ZHRC that we must look for unvarnished truth and the correct state of our government’s compliance with human rights.
It is such organisations that Government relies upon to monitor itself, and to ensure that problems are addressed.
If such organisations become partisan or blind to the principle of objectivity, they risk being viewed as captured by certain interests and losing their voice as the human rights conscience of the government.
This is why the ZHRC Report titled “Monitoring Report in the Aftermath of the 14 January to 16 January 2019 ‘Stay Away’ and Subsequent Disturbances” is so very disappointing.
It contains statements that are, at their very best, mere allegations, and fails to take anyone into its confidence with details and context.
We are left to think that the Commission believed that everything it said was common cause, or had been proved, when in fact it is anything but.
Allegations are repeated as settled facts, giving a very distorted picture.
Institutions like the ZHRC are very useful as counterpoints to the fringe elements who have taken positions in the human rights sphere for different interests.
If Evan Mawarire or Fadzai Mahere stand up and say this or that happened, one must take it with a pinch of salt because they are political activists, they are bound to lie in order to fit a narrative.
If David Coltart says that teachers were raped at such and such a school, we know he is lying, because he is a serial liar (among other things, except when he is confessing to war crimes in his book) who peddled the completely false story about disappearing V11s at the close of elections in 2018.
But, if the ZHRC says that “police were letting loose their dogs to attack those whom they suspected to have” taken part in the riots, or “arresting officials in most cases came during the night…” or “the police during the bail hearings in Chitungwiza admitted that they had arrested primary school children, some as young as 11 years”, the country, nay, the world, is going to stop and take notice.
These sound like very serious allegations.
That means, the ZHRC must be circumspect in how they write their reports.
Emotive, NGO-speak must not be used without qualification.
If police actually did let their dogs loose on suspects, let us know in how many instances and where.
Let us know if anyone was injured as a result, and if they got treatment.
But, crucially, let us know in what circumstances this happened.
Were the suspects fleeing, and the only way to stop them was either to shoot them or get the dogs stop them? Because that makes a world of difference.
Letting dogs loose on a surrendering suspect is an egregious violation of human rights, but the use of police dogs to stop a suspect from fleeing when the alternative is to shoot that suspect dead is a very good and judicious use of the dogs.
And by the way, the police use of dogs is not outlawed in this country.
The ZHRC claims further that “at least 8 deaths have been reported to the Commission and mostly attributed to use of live ammunition” but only talks about 1 such death, which they say was during a confrontation with the police at Makoni Police Station.
Where did the other 7 alleged deaths happen, and in what circumstances? Did the ZHRC actually see the dead people or it relied on mere claims or media reports?
Given the seriousness of the matter (loss of life), it is not to the credit of the ZHRC that they can so casually talk about 7 deaths in the same manner that one talks about the weather or the loss of the year’s tomato crop.
Even on the alleged incident at Makoni Police Station, the Commission seems at pains to downplay the confrontation with the police by a mob, and instead highlight the shooting as a justification for subsequent clashes.
Legally, the Commission is supposed to assess whether the shooting was a proportionate use of force in order to deal with an imminent threat, which sounds like the case.
In fact, it is clear from the report that the Commission seems unaware of the law on the use of lethal force during violent assemblies.
The Commission says:
“The unleashing of live bullets on demonstrators [is an example] of excessive force that was used by the police amounting to Police Brutality often violating the right to life. Other methods of dispersing crowds such as tear gas, rubber bullets and water canisters could have been used rather than the use of live bullets which to any reasonable person have the potential of causing unnecessary deaths.”
This reads like the Commission assumes that the use of lethal force or live ammunition in law enforcement is always unlawful.
That is not correct. The suggested alternatives are part and parcel of a graduated use of force in law enforcement yes, but are not the only methods.
Lethal force can and must be used in a proportionate and accountable way in order to serve a legitimate and necessary law enforcement objective.
Advocate Tinomudaishe Chinyoka, Special Correspondent
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