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Amnesty International Report 2006 - Zimbabwe

The government engaged in widespread and systematic violations of the rights to shelter, food, freedom of movement and residence, and the protection of the law. Hundreds of thousands of people were forcibly evicted during winter and their homes demolished as part of Operation Murambatsvina (Restore Order). Tens of thousands of informal traders and vendors lost their livelihoods and their ability to support their families as part of the operation. Despite overwhelming evidence of humanitarian need the government repeatedly obstructed the humanitarian efforts of the UN and civil society groups. The police continued to operate in a politically biased manner and police officers were implicated in numerous human rights violations, including arbitrary arrest and detention, assault, ill-treatment of detainees and excessive use of force. Freedom of expression, association and assembly continued to be severely curtailed. Hundreds of people were arrested for holding meetings or participating in peaceful protests.

Background

In parliamentary elections held on 31 March, President Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) party won 78 out of 120 contested seats. This gave ZANU-PF an effective two-thirds majority in parliament, where a further 30 seats go to people who are not elected, including traditional leaders sympathetic to ZANU-PF and direct Presidential appointees. There were fewer reports of politically motivated violence surrounding the elections than in previous elections. However, AI was concerned by the levels of non-violent intimidation and harassment, systematic repression of the rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly, and the manipulation of food distribution by the government-controlled Grain Marketing Board that took place before, during and after the parliamentary elections. Supporters of the main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), suffered acts of reprisal following the March elections, including assault and destruction of property.

Voter turn-out for Senate elections in November was extremely low, reported to be less than 20 per cent of eligible voters. The MDC was split over a decision by its leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, not to contest the Senate elections and some MDC candidates stood for election. ZANU-PF won the majority of the seats.

A report by the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights (ACHPR) of a fact-finding mission to Zimbabwe in 2002, which was officially made public in February 2005, concluded that human rights violations had occurred in Zimbabwe. The ACHPR made several recommendations, but by the end of the year almost nothing had been done to implement them. Government ministers and officials made disparaging comments about the report and the ACHPR. In December the ACHPR adopted a resolution on Zimbabwe for the first time, condemning human rights violations and calling on the government to implement ACHPR and UN recommendations including an end to forced evictions and respect for freedoms of expression, association and assembly and the principle of separation of powers.

Despite a poor harvest, the government again decided not to appeal for food aid. Supplies of maize via the government's Grain Marketing Board were extremely erratic, particularly towards the end of the year, and many areas were without maize for long periods. World Food Programme reports repeatedly highlighted serious food insecurity in many areas, with incidence of hunger increasing towards the end of the year as Zimbabwe entered the traditional "hungry season".

Mass forced evictions and demolitions

In May the government embarked on Operation Murambatsvina, a programme of mass forced evictions and demolition of homes and informal businesses. The operation, which was carried out against a backdrop of severe food shortages, targeted poor urban and surrounding (peri-urban) areas nationwide. The evictions and demolitions were carried out without adequate notice, court orders, due process, legal protection, redress or appropriate relocation measures, in violation of Zimbabwe's obligations under international human rights law. During the operation police used excessive force: property was destroyed and people were beaten.

In June the UN Secretary-General appointed Anna Tibaijuka as Special Envoy on Human Settlement Issues in Zimbabwe to examine the impact of Operation Murambatsvina. In a report released on 22 July, she estimated that some 700,000 people had lost their homes, their livelihoods or both between May and July and that at least 2 million more people were indirectly affected by the operation. She stated that Operation Murambatsvina "was carried out in an indiscriminate and unjustified manner, with indifference to human suffering, and, in repeated cases, with disregard to several provisions of national and international legal frameworks".

The police, who carried out most of the evictions, and the government stated publicly that those evicted should "return to their rural areas". This was despite widely acknowledged food shortages and hunger in the rural areas. Moreover, many people evicted during Operation Murambatsvina had fled these areas because of political violence in previous years. People were forcibly put on police and government trucks and taken to rural areas. In numerous cases the authorities simply abandoned groups of people at rural bus stops or local authority offices, without access to shelter, food, water or sanitation.

• On 28 June heavily armed police arrived at Porta Farm, an informal settlement of approximately 10,000 people established in 1991 on the outskirts of Harare, and began demolishing homes. The police were acting in defiance of two court orders prohibiting evictions from Porta Farm unless alternative accommodation was provided for the community. The police reportedly told residents that they were not going to obey the court orders as they were acting on orders "from above". Demolitions continued throughout the day and on 29 and 30 June police forcibly removed people by truck. Local human rights monitors reported that during the chaos several people were injured. At least three people reportedly died on 30 June. The deaths were raised with the authorities by the UN and civic groups, but no investigation had taken place by the end of the year. Some of those forcibly removed from Porta Farm were abandoned outside Harare, apparently left to make their own way to a rural village where they might be received by relatives. Others were taken to Caledonia Farm Transit Camp, established by the government to temporarily accommodate victims of the mass evictions. Conditions at Caledonia Camp were extremely poor.

In July the government launched Operation Garikai/Hlalani Kuhle (Reconstruction), under which it was implied that thousands of new homes would be built to address the needs of those made homeless by Operation Murambatsvina. However, no proper plans were made public and, although the government stated that 3 trillion Zimbabwe dollars had been allocated to the operation, it did not appear in the national budget. Given the grave economic crisis affecting Zimbabwe, there was widespread scepticism about the operation. By the end of the year the state and independent media as well as non-governmental organizations (NGOs) were reporting that the rebuilding operation was significantly behind schedule. Many of those houses designated as "built" remained incomplete, without access to services such as water and sanitation, and appeared to be uninhabited. The criteria used for allocating new houses were unclear, but appeared to include proof of employment or income, effectively excluding the majority of Operation Murambatsvina victims. Reports in the media, as well as from NGOs, stated that some of the new houses were allocated to civil servants and government officials, and there were several reports of corruption in relation to the operation.

While the majority of the evictions and demolitions took place between May and July, the government continued to evict people during the remainder of the year. In several cases, families endured repeated evictions as the government sought to drive people back to the rural areas.

Humanitarian crisis

Operation Murambatsvina resulted in enormous internal displacement of people. The UN described the aftermath as a "humanitarian crisis of immense proportions". Although the UN Special Envoy recommended that there should be full and unfettered access to humanitarian assistance for the victims of the forced evictions and house demolitions, the Zimbabwean authorities repeatedly obstructed and curtailed the humanitarian operations of the UN and civil society groups.

Humanitarian groups reported that in some cases negotiations with the authorities enabled them to supply food, water and other relief items to internally displaced people, but that their access was constrained and subject to arbitrary changes by the authorities, and they were generally prevented from providing temporary shelter, particularly tents, to those living in the open. Many humanitarian actors maintained that this was because the government thought tents were too visible a sign of the humanitarian crisis created by Operation Murambatsvina.

• On 20 July the police conducted a series of night-time raids on churches in Bulawayo sheltering more than 1,000 of the most vulnerable victims of forced evictions, including elderly and ill people, and children. According to witnesses, the police arrived after midnight wearing riot gear and forced their way into the churches. Sleeping people were poked with batons and kicked to wake them up. They were forced onto trucks and transported to a transit camp outside Bulawayo. Within days the transit camp was closed and people were again forced to board trucks, in most cases at night, and were transported to various rural areas where they were left without shelter, food, water or sanitation. Following the raids the churches were told that they could no longer provide shelter to those made homeless as a result of Operation Murambatsvina. Police subsequently checked to make sure the churches were complying with this directive.

• At the end of July more than 1,000 people – many from Porta Farm – were taken by police and government agencies to Hopley Farm, where they were left on open land with no shelter, no access to sanitation and insufficient food and clean water. The government did not provide humanitarian assistance, nor did it inform the humanitarian community that people were stranded there. On the contrary, when the plight of those at Hopley Farm began to be known in Harare, organizations that went to the camp to help were turned away by police. Some humanitarian access to Hopley Farm was subsequently negotiated by the UN and civic groups, but at the end of the year living conditions at Hopley Farm remained extremely poor.

On 31 October the UN Secretary-General expressed great concern about the humanitarian situation in Zimbabwe and the failure of the government to ensure proper humanitarian assistance for those in need. In November the government agreed to allow the UN to provide shelters, but continued to refuse the UN permission to use tents to provide immediate shelter for the homeless. By the end of the year the UN shelter programme had not been implemented and its future was unclear after the Minister for Local Government, Public Works and National Housing reportedly rejected as sub-standard a model structure prepared by the UN in collaboration with government technicians. Meanwhile, thousands of people, including children, the ill, the elderly and other vulnerable people, continued to live without shelter and in conditions of extreme hardship. Overall, humanitarian access remained highly constrained.

Freedom of association and assembly curtailed

The Public Order and Security Act (POSA) and the Miscellaneous Offences Act continued to be used selectively to prevent the political opposition and civil society groups from meeting or engaging in peaceful protest. Hundreds of human rights activists and opposition supporters were arrested or detained under these laws during the year. Dozens of people were assaulted during arrest or while in police custody. Police repeatedly obstructed or denied detainees' access to lawyers, food and medical care.

• On the evening of 31 March, the day of the parliamentary elections, police arrested approximately 260 women, some carrying babies, when the activist group Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) attempted to hold a peaceful post-election prayer vigil at Africa Unity Square in Harare. During and after the arrests, several of the women were beaten. Some were forced to lie on the ground and were beaten on the buttocks by police. Several were seriously injured and needed hospital treatment. None was given access to adequate medical treatment during their detention. The women and children were detained overnight in an open-air courtyard at Harare Central police station under armed guard. They were initially denied access to lawyers. Police reportedly told the women that they could pay a fine and be released if they pleaded guilty to minor offences under the Miscellaneous Offences Act; otherwise they would remain in detention over the weekend to face charges under the POSA. The women – several of whom were elderly, injured or with their children – decided to pay fines, fearing further abuses in detention.

• On 8 November more than 100 people were arrested in Harare when the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions tried to hold a peaceful demonstration protesting against the grave economic situation in Zimbabwe. Lawyers were initially denied access to the detainees, who were moved by police from one police station to another in an apparent attempt to prevent access to lawyers. Neither the detainees nor their lawyers were informed of the charges against them until the second day of their detention, when police said they would be charged under the POSA. However, the Attorney General refused to prosecute and all the detainees were released on 11 November.

Repressive laws including the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act and the Broadcasting Services Act were used to curtail freedom of expression.

• On 15 December armed police in Harare raided Voice of the People, an independent radio station that broadcast from outside Zimbabwe but maintained offices in the country. Three staff members were detained. Police initially told lawyers that the three would be held until Voice of the People executive director John Masuku presented himself at the police station, and then said they would be charged under the Broadcasting Services Act. However, the Attorney General refused to prosecute, reportedly on grounds that there was no evidence of any offence. The three were released on 19 December. The same day John Masuku and Voice of the People board chairman David Masunda presented themselves at Harare Central police station and were detained. David Masunda was released later that day. John Masuku was held until 23 December and was charged under the Broadcasting Services Act with illegal possession and use of broadcasting equipment.

Human rights defenders under threat

Legislation passed by parliament in December 2004 governing the operation of NGOs, which was strongly criticized for targeting human rights groups, was not signed into law by the President. However, the government continued to use the Private Voluntary Organisations Act to intimidate and harass NGOs. Following the March elections, the government used provisions in the Act to investigate numerous NGOs. Investigation teams made unannounced visits to NGOs, and demanded to see documents relating to activities and funding. The investigation process was reported to be intimidating and intrusive.

The ever-present threat of closure created a climate of fear and compromised the effectiveness of many NGOs. Human rights activists continued to face harassment, arbitrary arrest and detention and assault, most frequently at the hands of the police.

Repressive legislation

On 30 August parliament passed the Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment Act (No.17), which was subsequently signed into law by the President. The Act violated internationally recognized rights, including the right to equal protection of the law and the right to freedom of movement. Clause 2 of the Act removed the power of courts to hear any challenge or appeal against the acquisition by the state of agricultural land under Section 16 of the Constitution. Land owners and anyone with an interest or right in agricultural land so acquired can no longer challenge the lawfulness of the acquisition. Clause 3 of the Act extended the grounds under which it is possible to limit the right to freedom of movement enshrined in Section 22 of the Constitution. Freedom of movement can now be limited in "the public interest" and in "the economic interests of the State". Moreover, the Constitutional Amendment Act restricts the right to leave Zimbabwe. The new limitations on the right to freedom of movement breach international human rights standards.

• In December the authorities seized the passports of Trevor Ncube, publisher of independent newspapers The Standard and the Zimbabwe Independent, opposition politician Paul Themba Nyathi and trade unionist Raymond Majongwe. The passports of Trevor Ncube and Paul Themba Nyathi were returned and the High Court subsequently ruled that the passport seizures were illegal. However, by the end of the year the passport of Raymond Majongwe had not been returned.

Update: Roy Bennett

Former opposition member of parliament (MP) Roy Bennett was released from prison on 28 June, having served eight months of an effective one-year prison sentence. It remained standard policy to commute a third of any sentence for good behaviour. Roy Bennett had been convicted of assaulting the Minister for Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs during a heated exchange in parliament on 18 May 2004. He was convicted by a parliamentary committee acting under the Privileges, Immunities and Powers of Parliament Act. The procedure was politically biased and failed to meet international standards for fair trial, including the requirement that a punishment be proportionate to the gravity of an offence. Roy Bennett was also denied the right of appeal. During his detention Roy Bennett suffered humiliating and degrading treatment.

AI country visits

Amnesty International delegates visited Zimbabwe in February, July/August and December.

Topics: Human rights activists, Forced eviction, Freedom of association, Freedom of assembly,