Disgraceful responses from Paradzai Zimondi and Patrick Chinamasa
I’m not sure Paradzai Zimondi and Patrick Chinamasa fully get the message or understand how appalled the world is at their failure to do their jobs. Far from being worried, and trying to rectify their crimes – because let’s face it, we’ve seen grotesque violations of human rights – both are being pugnacious and unapologetic. The Zimbabwean claims that prison wardens at Beitbridge prison are in trouble with Paradzai Zimondi because cameras came into the prisons under their watch:
Beitbridge prison wardens are in trouble for smuggling in investigative reporters from SABC’s Special Assignment programme into the prison to carry out investigative work. The Zimbabwean has learnt.
The SABC crew recently produced a documentary exposing the rot in Zimbabwean prisons. In their research they managed to work with high ranking prison officials that they managed to bribe.
“We are in trouble because the Zimbabwe Prisons Commissioner believes that we had a hand in the expose. His argument is that we compromised state security. I personally feel we were right because without doing so the world would not have known what really happens in Mugabe’s jails. There is an internal investigation underway,” said a prison guard. [...]
The Zimbabwe Prisons Commissioner Paradzai Zimondi does not deny that prison life is unbearable in Zimbabwe but argues that proper channels have to be used to get information.
“It is not a secret that the situation is bad in prison but people should respect and use proper channels for accessing information. If anyone is found to have helped those journalists they will get arrested in the same prison,” said Zimondi.
Chinamasa’s response is baffling. A few days before the documentary was aired he admitted things were dire in the prisons. I thought he was moving into ‘how do I get myself out of this pickle’ mode, knowing an expose was coming:
Justice minister Patrick Chinamasa has admitted to the dire conditions being experienced by the country’s 14,000 prisoners.
“Economic hardships are hitting hardest inside prisons,” Chinamasa, a member of President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu PF party, recently told parliament.
“There are no uniforms; food requirements are not being met. We are required to meet a statutory diet but it is not being complied with; rations for prisoners are not being supplied due to inadequate funding. We have recorded malnutrition cases.”
Today reports seem to indicate Chinamasa dodging accountability and lying through his teeth:
Zimbabwe’s Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa has dismissed as “false” an SABC TV3 Special Assignment documentary which aired horrifying footage exposing how prisons in the country have become death camps for thousands of inmates who are deprived of food and medical care. [...]
In an interview with RadioVOP on Wednesday, Chinamasa said the documentary, which shocked most Zimbabweans due to its horrifying pictures of gravely ill inmates, accused the SABC team of fabricating the story.
“What was shown by the SABC3 is not true,” said Chinamasa. “The SABC is lying. We do not allow cameras into our prisons. We have made investigations and found out that the footage is not from Zimbabwean but other countries,” he said.
“The pictures shown are not from Zimbabwe prisons but elsewhere in Africa and these are being attributed to us. We know our prisons are facing challenges but that documentary was false. Also it is unethical for the SABC to show such pictures of foreign prisoners and attribute them to Zimbabwe. I want to re-state that no-one is allowed inside our prisons with cameras,” he said. (Via RadioVop)
This sort of attitude, from two men who have allowed these atrocities to go on under their watch, is only going to fan the flame of public anger and worldwide outrage to greater heights. They should be on their knees begging for forgiveness from the families of the hundreds who have died miserable deaths. It’s disgusting. Disgraceful.
I wonder if they will try ban SABC along with the BBC and other international media outlets in line with their ‘tell the story our way or damn you to hell’ media policy? Incidentally, despite the new transitional government, the repressive media environment still hasn’t been satisfactorily addressed – thank god for undercover footage that gets the truth out! What are the ‘proper channels’ for accessing information that Zimondi refers to? Hearing it via the state controlled media? Listening to and reporting lies?
April 2nd, 2009 19:40
Hi Hope.
This is going to “Run” and “Run”.
Zimondi relies on the reserve bank for remittances to buy food, wages, pay backhanders to the CIO etc. Now this has dried up he’s between a rock and a hard place.
Good..he’s now in the spotlight.
April 3rd, 2009 00:27
Evil, inhumane, pompous asses, that’s all they are. Let’s hope these two idiots will meet the same fate when it’s their turn for prison.
April 4th, 2009 10:17
I am afraid that here in South Africa it is just the same.There is even “whistle blower legislation ” in place to protect those people who expose wrondoing, but in every case that I have heard of, the wrondoers ( usually government departments ) spend more time and money chasing the whistle blowers rather than correcting the faults exposed.
April 4th, 2009 14:47
As a British person who lived in Botswana and Malawi for many years, and visited Zimbabwe when it was a less troubled, but no less beautiful or interesting country than it is today, I am deeply concerned about the plight of Zimbabweans under Mugabe. In particular I was extremely upset by the footage recorded by Godknows Nare (presumably at personal danger)of conditions inside Zimbabwes prisons.What I want to know is: what can I do to help? I have sent an appeal to the Zimbabwean authorities following instructions from Amnesty International, but wonder how effective this action is, given that Mugabe particularly objects to people from the UK (the colonial oppressors)and is unlikely to be swayed by opinions from the UK. I am grateful every day that I live in a country that is politically stable and that I have the freedom to challenge my government without being incarcerated.Please advise me as to what I could do that would really help
Bryony, UK
April 4th, 2009 15:10
This from Australia. If the government of Zimbabwe cannot feed its prisoners, it should let them go. Those photos are truly shocking and will brand the country for a very long time otherwise. Photos of black people in chains, in custody here, but in a far better physical state than the folk in the Zimbabwe photos, still haunt Australia a hundred years on.
April 4th, 2009 18:45
@ Bryony
There is an effort going on behind the scenes to get Food, and other aid into the Zim Prisons. Sokwanele is busy investigating this at the moment along with missionary groups in Zim and South Africa.
They’re creating a central point where funds can be easily donated by individuals. When the infrastructure is in place, Sokwanele will send out an appeal for donations via this site.
The difficulty lies in ensuring that the supplies actually get into the prisons….
What YOU can do to help:
Watch this space for those details. When the link is available, pass it on to as many people as you possibly can. Even $10 donations will help. I’ve worked out that 1 kg of mielie meal costs about 40 US cents. If we all contribute something we CAN make a difference.
The trick is to make as many people aware of this site as you possibly can.
April 4th, 2009 21:10
We must know that these ZPF Ministers are just like that,they deny what they know and they don’t want the truth to come out.They have been doing this using ZBC and their Herald.As for Chinamasa,he is a long time Minister of Justice but he don’t even visit those Prisons to see how the situation is like.For six years I worked in the Prison Service,he never visited any Prison thus he don’t know what is inside the four conners of Chawagona Hapana Prison and others.I think it needs a new Gvt to take action not this GNU in which ZPF is still controlling.
April 4th, 2009 21:28
Until the cancer of ZanuPf has been cut completely out of Zimbabwe these horrors will continue..
April 5th, 2009 18:57
Zimbabwe guards bust over prisons film
Sapa Published:Apr 05, 2009
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Film exposes Zim jail horror
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Three prisons officers in Zimbabwe have been arrest on allegations that they helped film the shocking conditions in two of the country’s prisons for a documentary that was screened to international outrage last week.
Film exposes Zim jail horror
VIDEO: Starved and jailed in Zimbabwe
The television documentary, Hell Hole, produced by the South African Broadcasting Corporation, on Wednesday showed scores of skeletal prisoners dressed in rags and reportedly dying of malnutrition and HIV-AIDS in filthy institutions without food, medication or basic cleaning materials.
The SABC team said sympathetic warders had been supplied with secret cameras to film conditions in two institutions, Khami prison in the western city of Bulawayo, and one in the southern border town of Beitbridge. The documentary took three months to produce.
A senior police officer in Beitbridge was quoted Sunday in the independent weekly Standard newspaper as saying that warders Thabiso Nyathi, Siyai Muchechedzi and Thembinkosi Nkomo were arrested on Friday on charges under the Official Secrets Act, which prescribes lengthy jail terms for government employees who leak “state secrets.”
The film’s screening was greeted with uproar from human rights groups around the world and highlighted the situation of severe neglect of prisoners, many of them political detainees, that the new coalition government has inherited from the former regime of President Robert Mugabe.
Mugabe and pro-democracy leader Morgan Tsvangirai of the Movement for Democratic Change formed a coalition government recently, with Mugabe staying on as president and Tsvangirai appointed prime minister.
Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa, who is in charge of the country’s prisons, last week denied the documentary had anything to do with Zimbabwean prisons. “The SABC is lying,” he said. “We don’t allow cameras in our prisons. We have made our investigations and found that the footage is not of Zimbabwe but other countries.”
Prison support groups report that 20 of the country’s 14,000 inmates die each day.