17th July 2020
17th July 2020
#HumanRightsViolationsUnderEd Petition Launch Summary.
In the 2 and a half years since President Mnangagwa came
into power human rights violations against the citizens of Zimbabwe have
increased and are being perpetrated with impunity.
As at 17th July 2020, there have been at least 50
recorded murders, 30 recorded incidents of rape sanctioned by the state and committed
by state agencies. Thousands have been beaten by the security forces and there
have been hundreds of arrests and imprisonment of political and human rights
activists on trumped up charges.
There have been thousands of state engineered displacements
through wanton distruction of homes and small scale business premises.
Intimidation by state agencies and ZANU-PF members has
become the norm. Citizens are literally under siege from the state. The general
atmosphere in Zimbabwe is comparable to the Nazi era in German history in terms
of the fear instilled in the population.
Corruption has reached new heights with the President’s
family and their cronies being the main actors. Billions of dollars are disappearing
from state coffers through acts of blatant corruption. The Reserve Bank of
Zimbabwe has been reduced to a mere conduit for grand theft of citizens’ hard
earned savings by the political elite and their cronies
whilst the average citizen wallows in poverty and lives on handouts from well
wishers and the donor community.
Parliament has been stripped of its oversight role.
Mnangagwa is ruling by decree and is pronouncing ad-hoc “statutes” overnight
without due parliamentary process. The state has been captured and is now in
the hands of a notorious cartel which features the President, his cronies and
the military hierarchy.
The economy has literally collapsed due to a
combination of ill informed government policies and high level corruption. The
corruption has got to a level whereby billions of US dollars are siphoned from
the state coffers in daylight, without approval from parliament. Bizarre as it
may sound, it’s happening whilst we watch.
The health sector has collapsed and so
has other essential services like water, sanitation, electricity and roads infrastructure.
The mining sector is now in the hands of
the cartel and is now a haven for pillage and crime with Mnangagwa himself as
the major player.
Agriculture has gone to the dogs and
Zimbabwe has turned from being the bread basket of Africa to a basket case. Zimbabwe
now relies on imports, mainly donations from the international community and
remittances from its citizens in the diaspora.
The people of Zimbabwe are suffering with
no end in sight. Elections offer no hope as the process is always manipulated
in favour of ZANU-PF and the results are always rigged.
When citizens try to express their
disapproval of the bad governance, through peaceful demonstrations the state
resorts to violent repression. Apart from ordering the soldiers to shoot to
kill, the state goes further way after demonstrations. It carries out a
campaign of terror which sometimes entails the hounding of citizens through
countrywide nocturnal door to door visits by state agents, soldiers and ZANU-PF
youth brigade.
On the other hand, the government of
Zimbabwe has the audacity to spend millions of dollars engaging international
public relations firms (the likes of Mercury
International UK, Ballard
Partners, Avenue Strategies, and BTP Advisers) to lobby and spruce up its
battered image instead of just changing its evil ways. This is a waste of our
money and it’s like adding salt to injury. This is akin to applying lipstick to
a pig.
If this situation is allowed to continue, we will perish. This
is why we are launching a petition on the 20th of July 2020 and we are urging
all Zimbabweans to sign the petition.
We shall be petitioning the SADC, the AU, the EU Parliament,
UK Parliament, the US State Department and the UN Human Rights Commission to
intercede with the President of Zimbabwe on behalf of Zimbabwean citizens. This
is in order to stop brutal repression, bad governance, wanton human rights
violations and corruption as well as to return to the rule of law in Zimbabwe.
#HumanRightsViolationsUnderEd
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