African Commission To Act On Zimbabwe Rights Violations
Bulawayo, May 07, 2012- The African Commission on Human and People’s Rights
(ACHPR) has pledged to press the government to respect the rule of law,
Radio VOP was told.
The development followed submissions by civic society organisations during
the 51st session of the ACPHR held recently in Gambia over human rights
violations by the police in Zimbabwe.
Effie Ncube, the director of the Matabeleland Constitutional Reform Agenda
(MACRA) who attended the ACPHR meeting in Gambia, said the government had
dismissed human rights violations submissions by the civic groups as
propaganda and falsehoods.
The government was represented by David Mangota, who is the Permanent
Secretary in the Justice and Legal Ministry.
“The government was opposed to our suggestions that it was yet to establish
the rule of law when we cited for example the continued arrest and
harassment of Zimbabweans in their aspirations for democracy.
“They (government) said all we were saying was a complete lie, fabrication,
falsehood and coming from the Western driven Agenda as it were.
“Other s stakeholders who attended the ACPHR session were however very much
aware and cognisant that were telling the truth about Zimbabwe and the
Commission did commit itself to look into our allegations and to press the
government for change in respect of the rule of law and the Global Political
Agreement (GPA),” Ncube told Radio VOP in an interview on Saturday.
The ACHPR is an intergovernmental organisation seized with several appeals
about violations of human rights over freedom of expression, torture,
politically motivated violence, undermining of the judiciary and independent
national mechanisms and forced evictions under the guise of clean-up
campaigns.
President Robert Mugabe, his Zanu-PF party and state security organs stand
accused of widespread human rights abuses.
Mugabe denies the charges and instead accuses the European Union (EU) and
the West of human rights violations for imposing sanctions on his inner
circle and some government entities.
The EU and the West imposed targeted sanctions on Mugabe and his top
military, ruling and business associates in 2002 as punishment for
perpetuating human rights violations and failure to uphold the rule of law.