About This Report
False Dawn
August 31, 2009

VII. Recommendations

To the Transitional, Power-Sharing Government of Zimbabwe

  • Undertake an independently managed program of police and judicial reform with clear timelines and ensure that Zimbabwean civil society enjoys significant and meaningful participation in the process.
  • Place control of the police under new, non-partisan and professional leadership, accountable to an independent supervisory board. Ensure that police work is consistent with the United Nations Code of Conduct for Law Enforcement Officials and other recognized international principles.
  • Ensure full accountability, including prosecutions, for the perpetrators of serious human rights violations, regardless of position or rank, and press for appropriate remedies for victims of abuses.
  • Urgently repeal or amend all national legislation that is incompatible with international and regional human rights law and standards, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights. Statutes to be repealed or amended should include:
    • The Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act(CLA);
    • The Public Order and Security Act (POSA);
    • The Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA);
    • The Broadcasting Services Act (BSA); and
    • The Criminal Procedure and Evidence Act (CPEA), particularly section 121, concerning the revocation of court-ordered bail.
  • Ensure that new legislation is compatible with Zimbabwe’s international obligations to respect the rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly, and association.
  • Ensure that ZANU-PF immediately demobilizes and disarms its youth militia and war veterans groups who are responsible for abuses, and prosecute those members who have perpetrated serious human rights abuses.
  • Take all necessary measures to end impunity. Set up an independent commission of inquiry, with credible civil society panel members, to investigate serious past human rights violations, including those committed during the 2008 election period and in the Marange diamond fields.

To the Member States of the Southern African Development Community

  • As guarantor of the September 15, 2008 Global Political Agreement, ensure that the Zimbabwean government institutes promised human rights reforms.
  • Promote compliance to the Global Political Agreement and monitor the progress of all parties in carrying out their commitments made under the agreement.
  • Condition the lifting of sanctions against individuals in Zimbabwe with specific actions by ZANU-PF and the achievement of clear human rights benchmarks.
  • Assist Zimbabwe in holding free and fair elections that meet international standards and publicly support full, unfettered international monitoring of future elections well in advance of polling day.
  • Urge Zimbabwe to protect the credibility of the region’s diamond industry by making essential improvements to its management of the Marange diamond fields, and support calls for Zimbabwe’s suspension if it fails to do so.

 

To the European Union and the United States

  • Support all genuine efforts to resolve the political and humanitarian crisis in Zimbabwe by continuing to give priority to the needs of the country’s most vulnerable communities; and re-engage on a broader agenda once the transitional, power-sharing government demonstrates a pattern of concrete and irreversible improvements in policy and actions.
  • Continue to withhold development aid to Zimbabwe in the absence of clear progress in implementing key human rights reforms.
  • Maintain targeted travel sanctions and asset freezes against ZANU-PF and its leadership until ZANU-PF meets specific human rights and good governance benchmarks and until it becomes clear that such changes are irreversible.