By Nomusa Garikai- Two MDC activists, Tungamirai Madzokere and Last Maengahama, have just been freed after spending eight years in prison on a murder charge of a Police Officer. The two were not saving a jail sentence because they were never convicted of the crime, at least not of the murder.
In Zimbabwe, being a political activist opposed to the Zanu PF regime is a serious crime for which many have been charged and punished and even summarily executed! This case was one such case.
“They beat him up to such an extent that they fractured a bone on his arm,” argued Beatrice Mtetwa, a human rights lawyer. When the Police arrest Madzokere they assaulted him and broke his wrist – assault a common occurrence.
“The court ordered that there be an investigation on that, but we all know that nothing came out of those investigations. We know that not even a single sentence was written by the trial judge to deal with that.
“The time that these political activists spent in custody is a time that was unnecessary.
“The trial judge refused them bail on the basis that they had a strong case as the state had eye-witnesses, but during trial, the eyewitnesses disappeared and the Inspector who had been claiming that they had eye-witnesses started talking about informers who had no names, no identities and were never called.
“So, it’s obvious that there never were any eye-witnesses in the first instance.”
She had her crosswire on the individual Police Officer whom she wanted to be sued in their own individual capacity.
“Why should he (Police Officer) not be personally liable for lying in court for whatever personal reasons if he was put up to it, let him then go and claim those damages from those other people…”
Eight years in jail for a crime you never committed!
The real reason the two MDC activists were locked up is because they had dared to exercise their right to think freely and to demand a meaningful say in the governance of the country. As far as Zanu PF is concerned anyone who does that is a Ventriloquist Dummy vocalising the regime change agenda of their foreign masters. They are guilty of high treason and of all trumped up charges brought up against them to facilitate the arrest and punishment!
Political activists and critics of the Zanu PF regime are criminals, period. The Zanu PF ruling elite are the highest court in the land and their judgement is final; there is no appeal!
Former Police Commissioner, Augustine Chihuru’s PhD thesis was on the challenges of policing in a country awash with regime change criminals. His orders to his men and women were clear, they must harass, beat and even kill these regime change puppets at every turn.
Suing the individual Police Officer for what we all acknowledge is institutionalised rot in the Police, judiciary and in every facet of Zimbabwe society is better than doing nothing, I would readily admit that. Will it change anything? Not really, particularly when the captured judiciary will kick most of such lawsuits into the prickly pear thicket to rot.
Suing the individual Police Officer will make as much difference as a child emptying the sea into the pit scooped in the sand! The solution to Zanu PF misrule is simple but not that simple!
There have been many, many golden opportunities to end the Zanu PF dictatorship and we, the people of Zimbabwe, have wasted them. One such golden opportunity was during the 2008 to 2013 GNU when MDC leaders had the opportunity to implement the democratic reforms that would have freed the Police to do their work without fear or favour. Of course, MDC leaders sold-out but where was civic society in all this? Why did we all say nothing?
I think suing the individual MDC leaders for selling out during GNU on the court of public opinion would go a long way to end the Zanu PF dictatorship. For one thing, it will shed the light on what the GNU was about and, most important of all, why Zimbabweans must stop following these corrupt, incompetent and sell-out MDC leaders blindly like sheep to the slaughter!
Right now, the country is being stampeded into yet another utterly pointless 2023 elections. It is a well-documented fact that Zanu PF rigged the 2018 elections and that by participating Zimbabweans gave the vote rigging Zanu PF legitimacy. Nothing, absolutely nothing, has been done to stop Zanu PF rigging the coming elections. And the corrupt, incompetent and sell-out opposition opportunists are the ones leading the stampede on the false promise they will win the rigged elections!
One feels sorry for the ordinary people who are helpless to put an end to this madness of rigged elections. The rural voters especially have been reduced into nothing short of medieval serfs beholden to the overbearing Zanu PF thugs, they will be corralled to attend party rallies, to vote and thus once again give legitimacy to the vote rigging Zanu PF.
Zanu PF has already rigged the 2023 elections. The party has, once again, denied the 3 million or so Zimbabweans in the diaspora the vote for example. 5 million voted in the July 2018 elections. How can an election in which 3 out of 8 are summarily denied the vote be anything but a farce! Why are we, as a society, tolerating such nonsense?
The root cause of Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown and political paralysis; we are stuck with a corrupt, incompetent and murderous ruling party and an equally corrupt, incompetent and utterly useless opposition as the alternative; is decades of bad governance.
Bad governance is, per se, a man-made problem and therefore within our power as the citizens to solve. So far Zimbabweans have been as helpless as child in stopping the rot in our country. All they need is to be educated on what their rights are and how to hold those in positions of power and authority to account.
Suing the individual Police Officer for zealous lawlessness will not empty the sea of Zanu PF injustice. Sue the regime for denying 3 million Zimbabweans the vote, for failing to produce a verified voters’ roll, etc., etc. and you will end the curse of rigged elections and deliver a sea change of freedom, justice and hope in Zimbabwe!