adminLovemore Ranga Mataire : Senior Writer
Famous British author George Orwell once said; in times of deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act. These are indeed challenging times. So challenging are the times that some miscreants are now resorting to all sorts of stunts in desperate attempts to attract the attention of regime change instigators.With Zanu-PF stubbornly remaining being the colossus bestriding all the political space, some characters like Sten Zvorwadza and Patson Dzamara have shamelessly now resorted to some idiotic stunts of using children as shields to thwart police from breaking-off their illegal demonstration two days ago.
Zvorwadza is the self-proclaimed vendors’ association president while Dzamara is brother to missing journalist cum-political activist Itai Dzamara. In a clear sign of desperation, the trio fronted children holding roses and provocatively made gestures to the police who for their credit treated the stunt as nothing but acts of demented fools seeking to score cheap political points.
In times of deceit, we really need to tell the truth and expose the charlatans who seem to have lost any sense of decency in their desperate endeavour to attract the impressionable Western embassies still licking wounds of a long lost battle to dislodge Zanu-PF and President Mugabe.
We need to tell the truth that the battle for regime change has reached a smudge end. MDC-T’s Morgan Tsvangirai has run out of steam and the hunt is now on for a potential front-runner to take over the mantle on a second round onslaught on the Zanu-PF government.
It seems the departure of ‘pastor’ Evan Mawarire for greener opastures has created frenzied contests from all manner of organisations anxious to please regime change instigators. This is the environment that has given birth to such characters as Zvorwadza who now take demonstrations as some kind of pastime. Here is a man who is a perennial political failure whose attempts to run for a political office under the MDC-T have always ended in disappointment.
And you have one Patson Dzamara, whose (Dr) prefix is just dubious as his charade that he is a human rights activist. I feel sorry for his missing brother but his latest stunt of fronting children is not only culturally deplorable, socially despicable, politically bankrupt but also a complete violation of the minors’ rights as enshrined in the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child.
However, it surely must not come as a surprise that the same Western embassy that has been the vocal cheerleader of the demonstrations is yet to ratify the Convention of the Rights of the Child.
Until last year, the United States was one of three countries – the other two being Somalia and South Sudan – that had failed to ratify the CRC. Other fellow outliers have since ratified the convention leaving the US as the only pariah.
Writing recently for the American Civil Liberties Union, researcher Sarah Mehta describes as baffling America’s continued resistance to ratify the convention.
“The most obvious arena in which the United States denies children their human rights – and their childhood – is the criminal justice system, which American children encounter far too early and with devastating consequences. From a young age, many children – particularly students of colour and those with disabilities – are funneled out of the schoolroom and into prison for childhood behaviour. Children as young as six years old have been removed from the classroom in handcuffs for throwing temper tantrums,” writes Mehta, further stating that the US has a bad record when it comes to its treatment of juveniles.
It must not surprise anyone that the loudest shrieking cheers for Dzamara and other like minded individuals are coming from an ambassador whose country is yet to ratify an international convention protecting the rights of children.
Zvorwadza and Dzamara have lost the moral campus. Was it not Louise Diamond, an American author who said that “the greatest gift we can give to our children is to raise them in a culture of peace?”
It is thus morally wrong for anyone to manipulate children and use them to advance an agenda they barely know or understand. What moral lessons are being bestowed to these innocent children when they are forced to provocatively extend a rose to the police?
It is morally repugnant to impart feelings of indifference if not hatred towards figures of authority in children at such a tender age.
In simple terms, such actions are abusive and appropriate action must be taken to punish the perpetrators. Both local and international laws are specific on the treatment of children and Zvorwadza and Dzamara clearly crossed the red-line.
Culturally, the idea of using children as human shields and brandishing some flowers is alien and a complete aberration to African ethos and sensibilities. Children are treated as children and this is the reason why they are not wanted anywhere near Dare (the traditional African court).
Issues that are conversed at Dare are beyond children’s comprehension and this is the reason why they are expected to first pass through certain passages of rites before lending an ear to such important gatherings.
Similarly, political activism is not an arena for kindergarten kids. Any grievances that Zvorwadza and Dzamara might have can never justify the abuse of children who clearly have no idea of what is at stake. They were simply marshalled to a cause they hardly comprehended and looked lost as they were force marched by pathetic individuals who will not stop at anything in their attempt to besmirch the current government.
Politically, the move shows serious desperation. After the fading shrieking hysteria of the so-called #This Flag Campaign and the expose’ of Pastor Mawarire as a charade, lethargy and exasperation have crept as people have realised that they cannot feed on hollow campaigns. Using children as shields is thus the height of political desperation and an act that the relevant authorities must deal with in accordance with both local and international statutes.
Human shield is a military and political term that describes the deliberate placement of non-combatants in or around combat targets to deter adversaries from attacking these combat targets.
While it is understood that the illegal demonstration was not a declaration of war and cannot be described as a combat situation, the mere use of children as a shield in a potentially volatile situation is illegal especially to parties like Zimbabwe that are signatories to the 1949 Geneva Conventions, the 1977 Additional Protocol 1 to the Geneva Conventions and the 1988 Rome Statute.
A case in point is the one which a UN Committee on the Rights of the Child in 2013 reported that Israel forces arbitrarily arrested Palestinian children in Gaza and West Bank, subjected them to degrading treatment, exploited them to scope out potentially dangerous building and use them as shields to deter stone throwers.
Just as in the case of Israel, human rights organisations condemned its actions and called for a stop to the wanton arrest of children some barely six years. Similarly, outlaws who abuse children in pursuance of their own parochial agendas must face the full wrath of the law.
Article 36 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child clearly states that “children should be protected from any activity that takes advantage of them or could harm them or could harm their welfare and development.”
Outlaws need to be dealt with accordingly and must not be allowed to use children to advance their parochial agenda. The manipulation of children in political affairs including putting them in situations that endanger their lives is a prosecutable offence. The law must surely take its course.
Online Reporter