Human Rights News
  FREE    Join the HRW Mailing List 
Zimbabwe
Submission to the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group
January 30, 2002
Printer Friendly Version

PDF 23 pages, 86 Kb
Single-Page View 22 pages, 103 Kbytes

Key Sections

Summary

Recommendations to the Commonwealth

Background: "Firm Action Against Violence and Intimidation"- Zimbabwe's Abuja Commitment

Freedom of Expression

Law Reform and the Rule of Law

Organized Violence by State Agents and Ruling Party Supporters

APPENDIX: THE ABUJA AGREEMENT



Background: "Firm Action Against Violence and Intimidation"-Zimbabwe's Abuja Commitment

In recent years, and in particular since February 2000, when the government was defeated in a referendum to approve a new constitution, a political crisis has escalated in Zimbabwe. This crisis has been presented by the government and by the ruling party, the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), as a conflict about issues of land reform, a key issue since before independence. Zimbabwe's long liberation struggle, culminating in the installation of a democratically elected government in 1980, is often described as having been "about" land. This is an oversimplification-it was at least as much about the disenfranchisement of the overwhelming majority of the black population. However, there is no denying the centrality of the land issue. Land reform efforts since independence have failed to redress injustices in land distribution. It was still the case by 2000 that six million black Zimbabweans lived on sixteen million hectares of communal land owned by the Zimbabwean state, while 4,500 mainly white commercial farmers owned over eleven million hectares of the richest land. The blame for this continuing imbalance has been argued between the Zimbabwean and donor governments, especially the British, the former colonial power.

The 1990s were a period of increasing popular discontent in Zimbabwe. Opposition was spearheaded by the trade unions and civic organizations. The issue of constitutional reform became a unifying banner, to the point where in 1999 the government felt obliged to set up its own commission to draft a new constitution. It was now that the land issue, which had not been a key government priority for some years (judged by budgetary allocations and political statements), was again pushed to center stage. The main aim of the civic groups campaigning for constitutional reform was to reduce presidential powers and remove various repressive laws, many of them dating back to the colonial period. The Constitutional Commission draft, by contrast, increased and entrenched presidential powers. The government also inserted into the draft a controversial clause, Section 57, requiring the United Kingdom, as the former colonial power, to provide compensation for land that was compulsorily acquired. If it did not do so, then land could be taken without compensation. A new opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) was formed in late 1999, and campaigned against the government draft, along with many organizations from civil society more generally.

The Constitutional Commission draft was put to a referendum in February 2000, where voters decisively rejected it. This was the first time that ZANU-PF had been defeated in a national vote since 1980. President Robert Mugabe promised to respect the vote. However, two things happened in quick succession. The government announced that it was amending the Constitution and Land Acquisition Act to incorporate the provisions of Section 57 of the rejected Constitutional Commission draft. Secondly, bands of people began occupying white-owned farms, often led by members of the Zimbabwe Liberation War Veterans Association. Many of these occupations were accompanied by significant violence against farm owners and farm workers, much of it apparently organized by army personnel.

Parliamentary elections were held in June 2000, and presidential elections are scheduled for March 2002. ZANU-PF won the June 2000 election, but only narrowly. Out of 120 constituencies, the ruling party won in only sixty-two. The opposition is widely believed to have won a majority of the popular vote-clearly of significance for the presidential poll-but after eighteen months the Registrar General's office has still been unable to publish the figures. The elections were marked by violence and intimidation, particularly directed against MDC candidates and supporters, white farm owners and black farmworkers, teachers, civil servants, journalists, and residents of rural areas believed to support opposition parties. While there was some reciprocal violence by MDC supporters against the ruling party, all systematic monitoring showed opposition supporters as the majority of victims, and ZANU-PF supporters as the majority of perpetrators. The Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum, basing its findings on information received by its constituent organizations, found that at least eighty people had died in pre (72) and post (8) election political violence, up to the end of the year.1 There was also widespread criticism of the conduct of the poll, of media bias, and the legal framework provided by the Electoral Act.

The eighteen months from the parliamentary election to the present have seen an escalation of the violence. Senior judges, including Chief Justice Anthony Gubbay, have resigned after death threats. The government, rather than taking action against those issuing the threats, has stated that it was unable to provide protection to the judges. Chief Justice Gubbay was replaced by Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku, a former attorney general. The government ignored a ruling by the existing Supreme Court bench that its "fast track" land resettlement programme was unconstitutional. In December 2001, the new bench led by Justice Chidyausiku overruled the earlier Supreme Court ruling, and stated that the land seizures under the fast track process were lawful.

The situation in Zimbabwe has drawn international attention to the country from the United Nations, the Southern African Development Community (SADC), as well as states with important bilateral relations with Zimbabwe, including the U.S. and Britain. In particular, the Commonwealth, of which Zimbabwe is a member, has become increasingly critical of the situation in that country. The Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG), established in 1995 to monitor member states' respect for democracy and the rule of law, has come under increasing pressure to put the situation in Zimbabwe on the agenda for its regular meetings and has attempted to negotiate a resolution to the crisis.

On September 8, 2001, CMAG brokered an agreement with the Zimbabwe government over the continuing crisis in that country. At a meeting in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, Zimbabwe agreed to end all illegal occupations of farms and respect the rule of law. In return, the United Kingdom and other "international partners" pledged to support the land reform process.

The Abuja agreement stated:

    Land is at the core of the crisis in Zimbabwe and cannot be separated from other issues of concern to the Commonwealth such as the rule of law, respect for human rights, democracy and the economy. A programme of land reform is, therefore, crucial to the resolution of the problem.

It went on to say:

    The orderly implementation of the land reform can only be meaningful and sustainable if carried out with due regard to human rights, rule of law, transparency and democratic principles. The commitment of the government of Zimbabwe is therefore crucial to this process.

Written into the agreement were a number of commitments that the Zimbabwe delegation, headed by Foreign Minister Stan Mudenge, had made to the meeting. These included:

· No new farm occupations;
· Removal of occupiers of farms that were not listed for resettlement;
· Restoration of the rule of law to the land reform programme;
· Respect for freedom of expression;
· Firm action against violence and intimidation.

In addition the Zimbabwe Government signalled its commitment to previous Commonwealth declarations on human rights and the rule of law made in Harare in 1991 and Millbrook in New Zealand in 1995. (The full text of the Abuja agreement is in Appendix 1.)

Many Zimbabwean critics of the government were unhappy with the Abuja agreement. In particular, the statement that "Land is at the core of the crisis" is disputed by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change and by many civic groups. They argue that it is President Robert Mugabe's reluctance to relinquish political power that is "at the core" of the crisis. Legitimate as land grievances may be, critics maintain they have been mobilized over the past two years for largely unrelated reasons.2

This report does not address the substance of the land issue. That is the subject of a forthcoming study. Rather, this report looks at a number of the explicit commitments made by the Zimbabwe government at Abuja and reviews how these have been respected in practice. These include:

· Respect for the right of freedom of expression;
· Respect for the rule of law;
· An end to political violence and violence during land occupations.

Very shortly after it had signed the agreement, there were indications that the government was retreating from the commitments made at Abuja. Information Minister Jonathan Moyo was reported as saying that the Abuja agreement, which has not been widely disseminated within the country, contained no commitment for the government to end violence: "Not in the agreement. This is not a secret agreement. There is no such condition in the agreement," Moyo was reported as saying.3 Yet the wording on the government's commitment "to take firm action against violence and intimidation" is unambiguous.

1 Angela Cheater, Human Rights and Zimbabwe's June 2000 Election (Harare: Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum Human Rights Research Unit, January 2001), p. 35; for detailed statistics see also Human Rights Monitor 2000 Annual Report (Harare: Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum, 2001).

2 For example, "Press Release: Zimbabwe in Crisis Co-ordinating Committee", 25 October 2001. This states: "The well intended Commonwealth effort may abet the continued violation of citizens' rights, by concealing them from international scrutiny through a narrow fixation with land reform. Our position is clearly that the violence that has made Zimbabwe the subject of Commonwealth attention was and is related more to the election process than the land question. It is a fact that the violence flared up following the government's defeat in the February 2000 Constitutional referendum and pending the Parliamentary elections in which Zanu PF lost 58 seats to the opposition."

3 United Nations Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN), "Zimbabwe made no deal to stop violence - Moyo," September 26, 2001.