Zimbabwe, once a beautiful nation and the envy of the third world has gone to wrack and ruin.  There is so much frustration amongst the people and this has meant that millions have left the country.  Everything is a mess and most people’s frustrations are completely justifiable.

It is unfair to our many brothers and sisters who perished in the liberation struggle for the worthy cause of freedom. They did not foresee a country where all Zimbabwe’s neighbours and most of the international community would isolate us.  Neither did they fight for a country where one black man would kill another black man or woman. This country had such opportunity after gaining independence on 18 April 1980 to carry out a fair and transparent land redistribution exercise, achieve genuine national healing and reconciliation and become an economic powerhouse within the African continent.

But today we are the laughing stock of the whole world. (more…)

Not long ago, I was chatting with an eight year-old boy whom I met on the street and asked him what he wanted to do when he grew up. “Become a policeman,” he told me confidently. “Some policemen came to our school, told us how important, easy and interesting it is to be a policeman and I have already put my name down for the junior military.”

Junior military at the age of eight? Do we really want the security forces to begin recruiting and training children before they even know what laws are, or before they are strong enough to hold guns?

I don’t see anything wrong with becoming a policeman, but when I was still in primary, each week I imagined myself as something different: a pilot, a rocket scientist, a doctor. And no one would have thought to nudge me into the Youth Wing of the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Science and Development or Air Zimbabwe. (more…)

Only time will tell whether elections will be held this year or not but the youths in the country are not even excited by the spectre of a fresh poll.

They are tired because their vote since 2000  has not counted as the might of the sword has overridden the X of the pen.

Recently Brigadier general Douglas Nyikayaramba, declared President Robert Mugabe to be the winner of elections even before they are held and many people are pessimistic that such treasonous statements are the shape of things to come.  Indeed statements like these have been made before and have been put into action, as we all know only too well.  Police Commissioner General Augustine Chihuri and his comrades have made patently it clear that Tsvangirai will not rule Zimbabwe come what may.  And for that reason many youths are not ready to participate in elections whose outcome is already predictable.
For the unemployed youths in Zimbabwe, who yearn for a change to their mundane lives though, voting in elections is essential.  But sadly, in my opinion, these elections are meaningless and will continue to be so until such a time that the army zips up its mouth and stays in the barracks.

The so called liberation party is deeply entrenched in the security sector which according to Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai is holding the nation hostage through a palace coup.

2008 is only three years ago and any talk of a repeat of that horrible period is good enough to drive the youths back into their shells.

By Brian Raftopoulos – Director of Research and Advocacy, Solidarity Peace Trust

The excitement over the resolutions of the SADC Troika meeting in Livingstone, Zambia, at the end of March 2011, was largely focused on the stronger stance taken by the organ over the abuses of the Mugabe regime, and more particularly the continued obstacles placed by the latter over the implementation of the GPA. In effect however, the Livingstone resolutions brought into effect the major strength of the SADC mediation, which has been to lock the Mugabe regime into structures of accountability. Whatever the weaknesses of the GPA, and there are many, it has forced Zanu PF into closer accountability for its behavior at different levels including cabinet, parliament, JOMIC, the constitutional reform process, SADC, the AU and its relations with the West.

For authoritarian parties like Zanu PF, all these forms of having to answer to various fora are anathema, as they provide varying means of eroding the monopoly of power that the regime has become completely accustomed to. (more…)

Everyone seems to be talking about it. It’s scrawled on the walls, printed on t-shirts, and sometimes even spray painted on rocks.

Does this mean I am free to do whatever I want, to say whatever I want or to be whoever I want?

Whenever my grandmother talks to me about the colonial era, my heart sinks at the thought of our painful past. Zimbabweans really needed the right to freedom. Then I look around to find the meaning of this so-called freedom: an artist arrested for exhibiting the 1980s massacres carried by government troops, human rights activists jailed for lecturing on human rights, uprising political parties threatened and persecuted for an effort to widen choices on our ballot paper, and all the violence and distrust.

Is this the definition of “100% freedom?” (more…)

Click here to download the letter

This is a letter written by the (now former) President of the SADC  Tribunal and three other (now former) members of the SADC Tribunal to the SADC Secretariat.

The SADC Tribunal was established in 1992 by Article 9 of the SADC Treaty as one of the institutions of SADC.  The Summit of Heads of State or Government which is the Supreme Policy Institution of SADC pursuant to Article 4 (4) of the Protocol on Tribunal appointed the Members of the Tribunal during its Summit of Heads of State or Government held in Gaborone, Botswana on 18th August 2005. The inauguration of the Tribunal and the swearing in of the Members took place on 18th November 2005 in Windhoek, Namibia.

The letter addresses the issue of the SADC Summit’s illegal, arbitrary and mala fide (with or in bad faith) termination of the Tribunal and the terms of office of its justices instead of giving effect to its judgments against Zimbabwe.  Indeed, the decision taken to effectively dissolve the SADC Tribunal bodes ill for the future of any legally and independently constituted regional judges, courts or tribunals.

The letter is a powerful denunciation of the Summit’s conduct and an important contemporary piece in the rule-of-law jigsaw puzzle of southern Africa.

Further information:

• SADC Tribunal members
• SADC rules Zim defied its tribunal on land
• SADC Tribunal powers under attack
• Justice: Call for Inquiry Into SADC Tribunal
• SADC Parliament, a dream deferred?

The current leader in the government of Zimbabwe has to thank SADC for putting them where they are today.

After the disputed 2008 Presidential election and the one man run-off in a bloody campaign that left many people homeless and dead, the region saw if fit to save Zimbabweans from further political violence and negotiated a Global Political Agreement (GPA) and usher in an Inclusive Government (IG) composed of three political parties.

So whoever has any position in the current Inclusive Government has to thank SADC Regional Leaders and respect the Guarantor of the GPA. The recent attacks on the GPA Guarantor and misrepresentation of the SADC communique show how some ZANUPF apologist are misguided by greed and have short memories or have never had time to read the contents of the GPA. (more…)

Via Press Release: GALZ is outraged by media reports that a senior police officer arrested and charged for allegedly sodomising a ten year old. We deplore sexual atrocities against children and we strongly condemn the actions of the police officer whose role in society is to protect the very same child that he raped on several occasions before threatening him with unspecified action.

It is clear that distinctions need to be made between consensual and enforced sodomy given the fact that the officer now faces three counts of aggravated indecent assault instead of RAPE. This distinction needs to be made as these confusions have led to a situation of injustice since the law on sodomy lacks clarity, certainty and consistency. (more…)