Dear ZimEye.
Every day if one goes through Zimbabwean independent newspapers, they will find out that almost on daily basis police are blamed for violating some human rights. In most cases human rights are violated by police in trying to stop peaceful demonstrations. In most cases the force used to quell the demonstrations is regarded to be excessive and uncalled for.
Most people attribute the police behaviour to lack of enough training. I would like to put the record straight in relation to this matter:
The way the police responds to to these peaceful demonstrations clearly shows the behavior of ZANU PF. There are days our police force takes instructions directly from ZANU pf. If one fails to take instructions from ZANU pf, at the end of the day they are fired from the police without benefits. An example of situations where police take instructions from ZANU pf is where opposition political parties apply for permission to hold a rally or gathering. The police are given clear instructions to deny permission to the hosting of all the opposition political gatherings even if it is clear that the courts would eventually sanction the holding of the gathering.
You find out that reasons for not granting permission include “police have no manpower to monitor the rally” but when authority is granted by the court, more than enough manpower is deployed.
I would like therefore to urge opposition political parties, civic group, human Rights defenders and the international community to put in place a fund. The fund can be used to compensate police officers, army officers etc who are fired for disobeying unlawful orders. Most civil servants take home a paltry $20 000.00 as pension after working for more that 20 years. They take unlawful instructions in order to guarantee the receipt of that money at the end of the day.