TAKE ACTION : Send a letter to JOMIC
February 24th, 2009
In our mailing sent to all our subscribers yesterday, we asked people to send us letters calling for the release of all the political detainees. We will compile all your letters into one long document and send it to Professor Welshman Ncube in his capacity as chair of the Joint-Monitoring Implementation Committee (JOMIC), and ask that he gives copies to all the members.
JOMIC is tasked with monitoring compliance with, and progress on, all the items agreed on within the Global Political Agreement.
The three emails below give an idea of what some people are saying in their letters to Professor Ncube. Please can you all add your voices!
Dear Professor Ncube
Please be so kind as to convey to your fellow delegates in JOMIC, my deep concern and that of many others, for the safety of the political detainees currently held in Zimbabwean prisons, under guard in hospital, or whose whereabouts remain unknown.
President Mugabe wonders why the whole world is concerned about high profile detainees such as Roy Bennett and Jestina Mukoko – a question whose answer should be obvious. It is because the world knows that they were not arrested according to the law and the Constitution of Zimbabwe, but were extra-legally abducted. It is also clear that the most basic remedies of justice – normally available even to hardened criminals – have been withheld from them due to direct political interference. President Mugabe cannot allow public servants within the Police, the Judiciary, the Prisons Service and the Military to intervene personally at the highest level (even using personal vehicles to facilitate an abduction) and then suggest that the law should take its normal course in these cases.
The harassment, abduction and post facto arrest of perceived political enemies of the (former) Government has to stop, right now. While these people remain in custody under inhumane conditions, the world can see that for those who only hold power by consistently violating human rights, it is still “business as usual”. It is time that servants of the State, including the Security chiefs, became accountable to the people and to Parliament.
The conditions laid down internationally for the release of inter-Governmental aid and lines of credit are fair, just and consistent with democratic norms. Every effort should be made to comply with these conditions and with the provisions of the GPA, so that the full restoration of Zimbabwe to the family of free nations, can proceed. Release of the detainees is the first step. Without that, everyone is sharing a prison cell with a corpse – the lifeless body of Zimbabwean democracy.
Yours sincerely
Dear Professor Ncube,
The whole world is watching for change in Zimbabwe. (Those with money to invest, as well as the diaspora and interested others.)
The main thing that people will use as an indicator of the balance in Zimbabwe tipping from repression to freedom is: the release of the abductees and political prisoners.
If this is not done immediately and unconditionally, it will be obvious that the terms of the GPA are being deliberately snubbed. Not by all, but by those with power. We are all watching for who has power.
That would mean the Unity agreement for the future has certainly failed before much can be done – other than swearing in heaps of Ministers and buying heaps of Mercedes (at which the world laughs and cries simultaneously, and closes their own wallets!)
Those people need to be set free!
Legal arrests and prosecutions can follow in time to come, when Zimbabwe is no longer a failed state – the illegal detentions are what we see and deplore right now.
Please share my concerns with the JOMIC committee (including Minister Patrick Chinamasa) and with President Motlanthe of South Africa in his capacity as the current Chair of SADC.
ATTENTION: PROF WELSHMAN NCUBE
I worked with a lady who was married to an abusive man whose behaviour was aggrivated by alcohol. Two years ago he killed her and her sister after a day of drinking. He threw petrol on the sister and set her on fire, when the wife tried to leave with the child, he grabbed her and threw her on top of her burning sister. Amazingly, she managed to get herself off her sister, grab her child and run to a bottle store where the police and an ambulance was called. This lady was admitted to Mpilo Hospital where she reamined lucid enough to tell the unbelievable horror story of that night.
After handing himself in and spending probably a week in jail, he was released on bail on a Sunday afternoon. His family had arrived from South Africa and amazingly the courts ordered his release. About 5 weeks after this night, the wife passed away. This man’s sister arrived from Australia, took custody of the child, and somehow managed to silence the wife’s family about the incident. His sister left Zimbabwe with the child and this man now sits in Coronation Cottages whilst his family supports him.
I would like to know how a person who committed a double murder is allowed to remain free whilst Messrs Mukoko, Manyere, Mudzingwa, Chiramba, Zulu, Chinoto, Dhlamini, Mujayi, Garutsa, Bennet and others have been languishing in jail, some for more than two months. What kind of justice system is being practiced in Zimbabwe? Does the law only apply to certain members of society, and those who belong to the right party or have family who can pay off police and judges have a different set of rules? Is there any other country in the world where people who commit crimes don’t go to jail but innocent people do?
February 24th, 2009 18:49
CHIWENGA AND CHIHURI GO AND LEAVE PEOPLE IN PEACE AND LOVE RELISE MDC MEMBERS
February 24th, 2009 19:22
To The Honorable Welshman Ncube, Chair
Joint-Monitoring Implementation Committee
Dear Professor Ncube,
This text has been prepared in advance, but the sentiments are sincere and reflect my desires, nonetheless.
The whole world is watching for change in Zimbabwe. Please, if you would, be so kind as to convey to your fellow delegates in JOMIC, including Minister Patrick Chinamasa and with President Motlanthe of South Africa in his capacity as the current Chair of SADC,
my deep concern and that of many others, for the safety of the political detainees currently held in Zimbabwean prisons, under guard in hospital, or whose whereabouts remain unknown.
President Mugabe wonders why the whole world is concerned about high profile detainees such as Roy Bennett and Jestina Mukoko – a question whose answer should be obvious. It is because the world knows that they were not arrested according to the law and the Constitution of Zimbabwe, but were extra-legally abducted. It is also clear that the most basic remedies of justice – normally available even to hardened criminals – have been withheld from them due to direct political interference. President Mugabe cannot allow public servants within the Police, the Judiciary, the Prisons Service and the Military to intervene personally at the highest level (even using personal vehicles to facilitate an abduction) and then suggest that the law should take its normal course in these cases.
The harassment, abduction and post facto arrest of perceived political enemies of the (former) Government has to stop, right now. While these people remain in custody under inhumane conditions, the world can see that for those who only hold power by consistently violating human rights, it is still “business as usual”. It is time that servants of the State, including the Security chiefs, became accountable to the people and to Parliament.
The conditions laid down internationally for the release of inter-Governmental aid and lines of credit are fair, just and consistent with democratic norms. Every effort should be made to comply with these conditions and with the provisions of the GPA, so that the full restoration of Zimbabwe to the family of free nations, can proceed. Release of the detainees is the first step. Without that, everyone is sharing a prison cell with a corpse – the lifeless body of Zimbabwean democracy.
Yours very sincerely,
A Citizen of the United States of America
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
February 24th, 2009 21:02
please sir release these people if they is to justice in our country agai. do the noble thing and set them free you will have set an example for the new zimbabwe and for how you want zimbabweans and your self to be treated.
February 24th, 2009 22:21
To the Honorable Welshman Ncube, Chair
Joint Monitoring Implementation Committee
Dear Professor Ncube
I am an ordinary South African from Cape Town who daily comes into contact with hapless Zimbabweans struggling for survival in our country. The hardship they face is heartbreaking. They’re in a strange country fighting for survival, but somehow they prefer it here. One can only imagine how bad it must be for them at home.
It has become a priority for us to bring the entire world’s attention to the current injustice that prevails in Zimbabwe. Activists are being detained in circumstances that are too shocking to describe. People are disappearing without a trace, and those that are found, have been starved and half beaten to death. They’re only being allowed medical attention once intense pressure has been applied. This has got to stop!
The arrest and detention of Roy Bennett last week was uncalled for, and in violation of the spirit of reconciliation we are hoping to achieve with the new Unity Government. The subsequent appeal lodged by the Prosecution against his bail is nothing more than a tactic to keep him in prison, and to break his spirit.
We are appealing to you to urgently facilitate his release along with all other political detainees.
Yours Sincerely
Concerned Citizen
Cape Town, South Africa
February 25th, 2009 15:11
Please release without delay and unconditionally all the people cited in this petition – Messrs Mukoko, Manyere, Mudzingwa, Chiramba, Zulu, Chinoto, Dhlamini, Mujayi, Garutsa, Bennet and others who have been languishing in jail.
Is it not strange logic that you continue to imrpison these people in such deplorable conditions and yet the people who waged a murdurous campaign in the run to, during and after the 2008 elections are not only free but are calling for their own amnesty.
What type of rule of law is that? What type of justice is that? How can one still talk of respect for human rights in Zimbabwe against a background of such cowardly brutality worse than in Smith’s Rhodesia?
We, Zimbabweans who were once our own liberators are our own persecutrs today. What a shame?
February 25th, 2009 21:28
To the Honorable Welshman Ncube, Chair
Joint Monitoring Implementation Committee
Dear Professor Ncube
although it is nothing new, the unjust and politically motivated detentions witnessed in our country recently are all the more despicable in light of the fact that they directly contravene the GPA. What is being done? What is SADC’s response to this all-too-familiar tactic of their protegee, ZANU PF? How much longer must Zimbabwe bear this blatant dishonesty by the oppressors that have squandered and betrayed our liberation?
Yours furiously,
A weary citizen
Harare, Zimbabwe
February 26th, 2009 20:59
Let those in cuckoo-land,the likes of Chiwenga, Shiri and Chihuri, be warned right here that the long arm of the law will get to them- when the people of Zimbabwe fully regain their long awaited independence from the discredited and shameless regime.Please let them know that the people are watching and listening and also let them know that we have also infiltrated the CIO and all their shadowy and nocturnal visits to innocent peace yearning people are being documented and even filmed or both -how is that!
Aluta continua!
February 27th, 2009 18:12
Dear Prof
The country has no food. This coming season is another unfolding disaster. Our leaders are globetrotting begging for assistance from countries that do have not enough resources for their own people and reeling from recession. Humanitarian agencies have taken over ZImbabwe. How is it that some sections of our society find it OK and are allowed to thwart these efforts by invading farms, the very source of our food and foreign currency? Why can’t these people wait until the food is harvested and then they can invade later? Quite honestly I do not believe nothing can be done about this. If JOMIC is serious, it cannot watch efforts of the inclusive government being undermined. Why should it be Tsvangirai alone calling for a stop to this, as if the GNU is for him?
February 27th, 2009 18:25
Dear Current Chairperson of JOMIC
I was saddened by a picture that appeared in the Herald showing Cde Mnangagwa and Dr Madzorera receiving a consignment of food donations from the Russian ambassador to Zimbabwe. I was embarrased and felt so ashamed. WHY DO WE HAVE NO SHAME. We happily receive such donations while at the same time we allow certain sections of our society destroy our own food on productive farms, the very farms that have all along been producing for us. SOMETHING HAS TO BE DONE TO STOP THIS. Alternatively, IT MUST BE DONE DIFFERENTLY. And i believe JOMIC has the power to do something.
February 28th, 2009 13:36
this is madness,ZANU should free these people
February 28th, 2009 20:46
I am totally against this GNU especially if President Tsvangirai is now talking about forgiveness,how can he tell the nation,is he forgetting how our people were butchered by those hitting squards,we are still healing those wounds and noone was compensated neither did Mugabe apologised.
February 28th, 2009 23:15
the problem is you have people from MDC T only
being those who are being brutalised and MDC M
goes about its business whithout any hassle
this JOMIC is another ministry run by 12 ministers sending them these letters is only
to register our concerns otherwise he will just turn a blind eye and chuck everything in the bin go on there business of press
conferences