AUGUST 2017
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
ABOUT ZPP
The organisation was founded in 2000 by church-based
and human rights organisations. The current members of
ZPP are Evangelical Fellowship of Zimbabwe (EFZ),
Zimbabwe Council of Churches (ZCC), Catholic
Commission for Justice and Peace in Zimbabwe (CCJPZ),
Counselling Services Unit (CSU), Habakkuk Trust,
Zimbabwe Human Rights Association (ZimRights), Civic
Education Network Trust (CIVNET), Zimbabwe Lawyers
for Human Rights (ZLHR) and Women’s Coalition of
Zimbabwe (WCoZ).
A total of 149 human rights violations were
recorded in August down from the 223 figure
recorded in July. Harassment and intimidation
cases decreased in August to 80 violations,
followed by theft and/or looting which recorded
22, and assault with 15. Mashonaland Central had
the highest recorded violations in August with 41,
followed by Harare with 36 and Mashonaland
East with 24. While the figures are lower than the
previous month, a closer look at the nature of
cases makes for disturbing reading. The violations
were mainly politically motivated and peaked
towards or during political events. This still points
towards a festering culture of political intolerance
that potentially spells trouble in 2018 elections. A
lingering culture of fear cultivated by impunity as
a result of reluctance by responsible authorities to
act on political violence has resulted in more
compliance from the victims and less resistance or
the will to report the cases.
ZPP was established with the objective of monitoring,
documenting and building peace and promoting the
peaceful resolution of disputes and conflicts. The peace
project seeks to foster dialogue and political tolerance
through non-partisan peace monitoring activities, mainly
through monitors who document the violations of rights in
the provinces.
The monitors, who at full complement stand at 420,
constitute the core pool of volunteers, supported by three
Regional Coordinators.
The Regional Coordinators
relate with the national office headed by the National
Director and programme officers in various units.
accused of assaulting police officers in the Central
Business District of Harare.
A significant number of violations were
perpetrated in defense of the First Family or to
further their political interest. Those who resist or
criticize the first family have been targets of Zanu
PF activists.
Most of the violations recorded were towards the
Heroes Day Holiday. It has become a trend that
violations peak during key events that are meant
to be national which end up political and
associated with the Zanu PF party. It was
encouraging to note that in the month under
review the two main political leaders, President
Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai spoke out
against violence perpetrated by their supporters.
Tsvangirai took further action by suspending
those implicated. Although President Mugabe
condemned violence perpetrated by a group
associated with his party he also directed that the
perpetrators be attacked violently before being
ZPP has noted a sharp increase in political conflict
but a contradicting drop in the number violations
and number of victims for the month of August.
The majority of victims remained unknown
because they were not prepared to risk retribution
for exposing the abuses. Five hundred and seven
out of 745 of the victims were male while 238
were female. Four hundred and eighty six of the
546 perpetrators were male. Amongst the
perpetrators this month were soldiers who were
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