Zimbabwe Peace Project

November 2015
Human Rights Violations
MONTHLY MONITORING REPORT

Fear as a tool of
political manipulation

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2015_11 November Monthly Monitor Report

Monthly Monitoring Report

Executive Summary: THE month of November was rife with reports of politically-biased irregularities in the distribution of food relief and agricultural inputs. Recurring incidents across the country, but mainly in the three Mashonaland provinces as well as Manicaland, showed that the general populace which looks to the government for food relief and input assistance encounters a tremendous amount of dilemmas in accessing the distributions with hunger being a very real and ever-present threat. This results in the ordinary man on the street succumbing to fear – fear of being discriminated against; fear of harassment; and above all fear of hunger. And dilemmas abound for the people as they struggle with this fear and options available or not available to them. Battered by an unrelenting economic meltdown which has seen poverty levels in the country rise to unprecedented levels, those desperate for the food and input distributions face dilemmas which include having to make a choice of whether or not one joins the ruling Zanu- PF just so they can access the assistance as members of the opposition are repeatedly not listed for the donations. In cases, this past month, where people attended First Lady Grace Mugabe rallies where she brought substantial tonnage of food stuffs and inputs, among other “give-aways” and hoped to get a share of these goodies many of them found that they had to contend with jostling and shoving in long queues as well as facing heavy-handed police control, which often gave way to police brutality as the police attempted to maintain order during the stampedes for the handouts. Reports of police beating up people to maintain order as well as setting off their dogs on the masses have been noted in this report and elsewhere. The dilemma presented here being if you want the donations badly enough you would have to put up with the stampedes, police heavy handedness as well as the rambling hours since in a majority of the instances donations by the First Lady would be distributed well into the night or even the following day or days. A fairly new phenomenon, which has seen unassuming and poverty-stricken villagers being charged money in order to access food relief or input assistance is also something that many of them have to face if they want the handouts. Reports in an increasing number of areas across the country show that people are charged US$1 or US$1.50 by either party officials, councillors, and of late agricultural extension workers have joined the fray, as transport or registration fees in order for them to access the food and/or inputs. This is tantamount to manipulating the desperate masses since the food and inputs are often meant as free handouts from the Social Welfare Department, some non-governmental organisations and of late from the First Lady at her rallies. Such unscrupulous charging of supposedly free items to vulnerable masses is gross abuse and those considered politically incorrect for supporting parties other than the ruling Zanu-PF suffer the most. Another worrying trend which has reared an ugly head in the distribution of food and inputs is the denial of such assistance to the elderly, people living with disabilities as well as widows as noted in this report in areas such as Murehwa where some elderly people were denied this assistance because their children are members of the opposition. In Marondera West and Sanyati, among other areas elderly people and people living with disabilities were denied input assistance for one reason of political incorrectness or other. A widow in Mutoko East was denied food relief on the grounds that her late husband used to be a member of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC-T). That these are vulnerable populations is being ignored at the altar of political bias and political intolerance. Such an insensitive squeeze on vulnerable people in order to coerce them into toeing the Zanu-PF line of supporting no other party but the ruling one, has seen many languish in hunger with the express dilemma being that if you want to access government or First Lady assistance you must first buy a ruling party membership card. Going at US$3 each, membership to the ruling party is exorbitant to most rural folk, a majority of whom live on less than a dollar a day. Yet, Zanu-PF is unrelenting on the pushing of its membership cards on the masses across the country, particularly in the Manicaland Province where this reports notes that there has been an increased drive in membership mobilisations. Intra-party conflict continues on in Zanu-PF with Manicaland being the most affected in November. Factional divisions are reported as one side supporting the First Lady and the other Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa. Fear of hunger is obviously used as a weapon of manipulation by the ruling party resulting in most people faced with hungry children and other dependants being forced to make decisions using their stomachs. This month's report also carries as a special feature an excerpt from a study which was commissioned by Zimbabwe Peace Project (ZPP) on Fear which sheds light on the types of fear prevailing in Zimbabwe, the impact as well as the instigators of it. This report also carries an interview with David Rodhi Takaruza, Chief of Protocol for Transform Zimbabwe party which was formed in 2013. In the interview Takaruza makes the point that Zanu-PF through various entities, particularly the police, instils and promotes fear in the populace. By and large this report shines the spotlight on a myriad of violations, such as physical assault, discrimination, harassment, malicious damage to property, among others, as they continue to be used to deny citizens rights such as Freedom of Assembly and Association; Freedom to Demonstrate and Freedom of Expression, Equality and non-discrimination as part of the declaration of rights as espoused in the Constitution of Zimbabwe. The struggle for civil, political and socio-economic rights for the generality of Zimbabweans continues on.

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