WOZA slams police intimidation as another member arrested
Magodonga Mahlangu
By Alex Bell
18 September 2012
Pressure group Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) has slammed what it calls a “disturbing trend” of police intimidation in Bulawayo, after the arrest of another member on Tuesday.
Tuesday morning saw a group of more than fifty WOZA members march together to the Bulawayo offices of the Joint Operating and Monitoring Committee (JOMIC) to deliver letters of complaint about their treatment at the hands of the police. This followed the indiscriminate arrest of WOZA’s leaders, Jenni Williams and Magodonga Mahlangu last week.
The pair was arrested after riot police were called in to disrupt a peaceful protest. They were detained at the Bulawayo Central Police Station for the afternoon before being released without charge. Their letter of complaint now threatens to make a ‘citizen’s arrest’ of any riot police officers who violate their commitments by disrupting peaceful protests.
Williams and Mahlangu had attempted to deliver this letter to the Police General Headquarters in Southampton House on Tuesday morning, but officials there refused to accept it. They were then joined by their members to march to JOMIC, who advised them to deliver their letter to the Ross Camp police station.
Mahlangu told SW Radio Africa that when they arrived there, only she and her co-leader Williams were allowed into the building. Once again their attempt to lodge an official complaint was in vain when an official referred the activists back to Southampton House.
It was when they were leaving that WOZA member Christine Ndlovu was arrested by the police officer manning the gate, on allegations that she had trespassed. By Tuesday evening, Ndlovu remained in police custody.
“Her arrest was facilitated by notorious Law and Order Detective Sergeant George Levison Ngwenya, who has been responsible for the torture and harassment of our members. This is why we are saying this is intimidation and harassment and it is a disturbing trend in Bulawayo,” Mahlangu said.
She added that she believes this is a “tribal issue,” because this worsening situation is only happening in Bulawayo and not in Harare. She added that the police in Bulawayo are becoming increasingly aggressive and have threatened to beat and kill the WOZA members.
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17 Responsesto “WOZA slams police intimidation as another member arrested”
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What WOZA members have to ask themselves is: “Is there anything, anything at all, in the new constitution that will give them confidence that the harassment of WOZA members by the Police will stop after the new constitution is adapted?” If we can not get protection from the constitution then how can anyone in their right mind vote YES to such a useless law?
WOZA members have already said they will vote YES to the COPAC draft constitution. I hope this continuing reality of lawlessness in Zimbabwe will make them and all those who were thinking of doing the same to think again!
The Copac Draft Constitution is incremental and were it to pass, Zimbabweans would be in a position to follow on it by passing laws against the lawlessness of the Police.The biggest thing is that the Constitution would strip off the President of his current executive (imperial) powers so that he/she cannot protect the Police.
The present Lancaster House Constitution has citizens rights but the President has powers to protect the Police when they act against the people of the country but those powers are stripped off him/she. Does the trick of bring democracy to the people of Zimbabwe than Zanu crafting a 100 percent democratic Constitution?.
Wilbert, can you see what is meant by strategy and do you now understand the meaning of the incremental nature of the Copac Draft Constitution? The lie and constitutional obligation (right) of the Police legitimacy for lawlessness against the citizens of Zimbabwe is exposed. Is there democracy you are constantly talking about in this for the people of Zimbabwe?
One, the Lancaster House constitution does not give the President the power or authority to tell the Police not to arrest Zanu PF thugs much less tell the Police to arrest and beat up the victims of the political violence.
Two, there is no clause in the new constitution that will force of Mugabe to stop forcing the Police doing their duties, force the Police to disobey him if he did and/or will empower anybody else to punish the Police for failing to do the duties!
If there are NOT going to be free and fair elections, which is a given since not even one of the democratic reforms have been carried out, and thus Zanu PF will remains in power; how then do you expect to pass the “laws against the lawlessness of the Police”? Sure not Mugabe!
If the “incremental” changes are not enough to deliver free and fair elections then they are worthless. Think of it as jumping a chasm; you must have enough energy to clear the gap or do not try! And it is criminal neglegance to ask ordinary people who have, out of ignorance or whatever, put their trust in you to attempt the jump knowing fully well they will never make it!
In your items one and two above, you are totally confused on what you meant to say. Somebody should tell you that you are arguing against the Lancaster House Agreement (Constitution). By urging the electorate to vote NO to the Copac Draft, you automatically continue to operate under its present conditions.
More specifically, the NO vote leaves the President with his current, imperial powers of this colonial, Lancaster House Agreement in an independent Zimbabwe. Worse still Zanu will take the NO vote to mean absolute rule (abuse of power by one person) but labelled “democracy of a One-Party-State” which is the dictatorship of the masses. All the evils of the past would have returned to Zimbabwe – your democratic mirage.
With an Emperor (Executive) for a President, Zimbabwe will go back to 1,000 AD when it was an Empire where Police lawlessness against the citizens was protected and as a personal, State institution that helps the Head of State to oppress his subjects.
Can you see the ever increasing emergence of the oppressive tools in your NO vote strategy? Free and fair elections are synonymous with the Copac Draft but not the colonial, Lancaster House Constitution.
The choice is yours Wilbert to operate under the Lancaster House Constitution or the Copac Draft. Do not urge the people to follow the NCA lead for they are all confused as is in your imitation above.
Yepec
You want to see the back of Mugabe and this Zanu PF dictatorship and so do I and millions of other Zimbabweans out there. You see this COPAC draft constitution as a means of achieving that goal.
I tell you that draft is so weak and feeble it will never deliver free and fair elections there is overwhelming evidence on the ground to show this.
By proposing to pass “laws to end the lawlessness of the Police” after the next elections you too have accepted the draft would do nothing to end the lawlessness now and during the coming elections. What you fail to realise is that you will not win the elections because of the lawlessness and therefore you not get the chance to pass the laws! But more significantly, you will have voted YES to a constitution that you would want to change a,s,a,p. Why not reject it here and now!
Anyone who is anyone said at the time this GPA would never work, all the evidence on the ground said so. But people like Tsvangirai chose to ignore the evidence and even maintained that there was no alternative. Since when has folly become the only alternative! The last four years have seen Mugabe and Zanu PF consolidate their grip on power drawing the nation even deeper into the abyss. We should stop running round and round in circles and listen to reason!
This COPAC draft constitution is not worth the paper it is written on and the people of Zimbabwe must reject it with the contempt it deserves by voting NO!
Wilbert, you are a liar! During the past four years even though operating under the Lancaster House Agreement, a lot of things have improved :
(i) inflation at its peak, was more than 500 million percent, can you ever imagine what a 500 million inflationary rate is? Now it is, about, 3.4 percent – there is a big difference here,
(ii) people lost their money in Bank accounts (Checking or Savings). At present, Banks are not permitted to get what is in people’s accounts regardless of the rate of inflation,
(iii) there was no food on the shelves of most shops and one had to pay for what was available using wheel barrow to carry the moey. At present shops are full of products, prices are known in advance and one carries the money to acquire the products the in one’s pocket,
(iv) people are still being murdered, maimed, abdicated during daylight and the opposition parties can hold some meetings where they were banned before.Though it is still bad, the rate has declined. Notice that even some Zanu thugs are being arrested for murdering their opponents and the word “peace”, on occasions comes out of the mouth of the Imperial President.
(v) Zanu cadres used the Ministry of Finance to loot the Treasury. Even Gono left his specified duties at the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ).
One could go in listing some improvements compared to when Zanu was ruling on its own. Here again the Imperial President (powers), was the real reason for not constitutionally challenging the position. This, also, goes the free and fair elections without violence and rigging. The powers in the Imperial President makes him/her not accountable. The Copac Draft gets rid of those powers and makes the position constitutional accountable to somebody.
Confusing the present operating environment of the Lancaster House Agreement to that of the Copac Draft, is like prostituting oneself.First of all the Draft must be approved in a Referendumto be Zimbabwe’s constitution. The Imperial Prsident’s excesses are in the Lancaster House Agreement amended to give the imperial powers. A Yes vote means Zimbabwe’s next polls would be held under the Copac Draft Constitution. Anybody who thinks that Zanu would win or rig under those conditions needs his brains examined by a competent doctor.
Yepec if you really believe the act of voting yes to the COPC constitution will transform Zimbabwe into a law abiding nation in which free and fair elections will be held then it is you who needs to see the doctor.
It is the ordinary Zimbabweans I am really concerned about. They are the ones on the coal face of the political abuse and of the economic hardship of the economic melt down. The least one should do is tell them the truth that the COPAC draft is not worth the paper it is written on and that MDC are telling them otherwise to hide the truth of their failure to bring democratic change as promised.
In the six years 2002 to 2008 the Zimbabwe shrunk by 84%. a world record. When you start from such a low base it does not take much to improve things significantly. The dollarisation of the currency and ending the price controls alone did a lot to fill the country’s empty shops. Still even if MDC achieved everything you say they achieved the fact still remains that they failed to deliver any of the democratic changes. Signing the GPA was an act of political folly. And this COPAC constitution is rubbish.
Just answer these two questions for me; a simple yes or no will do nicely, thank you.
1) Do you think this GNU even now with hindsight, was a partnership of equals?
2) If Mugabe had the final say in everything; do you think during the horse-trading he would accept any constitutional clauses that undermined his own hold on power?
If the answer to any othe above was yes then vote yes to the COPAC constitution. If it was no then vote no!
Wilbert, there lies your confusion, “crying against the executive powers of Mugabe and the lack of democracy in Zimbabwe but, at the sametime, urging the electorate to Vote NO on the Copac Draft” – a very confused person indeed. Your one and two questions above attest to that fact but more importantly, the questions are referring to the Lancaster House Agreement (Constitution) with its amendments giving imperial powers to the position of the President of the Republic.
This is the Constitution under which the GNU is operating and the purpose of the MDCs in it, is to prevent Zanu and Mugabe exercising absolute powers (abuse), over everybody. The GNU is not a coalition government in the normal sense of the word but a national government to alleviate the worsening social situation on the ground. The improvements in the delivery of social services in Zimbabwe, show that some successes in this endeavor have been made. The abusive Presidential, executive powers, is what the Copac Draft is stripping off and Zanu’s Politiburo amendments are restoring. Your NO vote retains these monstrous powers of which the current President boasts.
So keep on urging the electorate to vote No but at the sametime do not cry about the lack of democracy in Zimbabwe.Your strategy of a NO vote retains this monster of Executive President.
I can see that I will never get a answer to a
simple question from you. Still, I will glean what I can from what you have
just said.
You accept that in this strange administration,
“not a coalition in the normal sense of the word” you called it,
Mugabe is “exercising absolute powers (abuse), over everybody”, again
your words not mine. And, by the way, I agree with you there completely.
It is an accepted fact that after the outreach
phase there following a horse trading phase were the three parties
“negotiated” to produce the COPAC draft now before the nation. It is
no secret that Mugabe had his “my word is final” say throughout this period. He
is a murderous tyrant used to absolute power and, worse still, abusing it;
right? It would be very naïve therefore to think Mugabe did not abuse his
absolute powers to block all meaningful democratic changes especially since
those changes were an affront at the very thing he cherished the most – his
absolute and tyrannical powers.
I have heard of the stupidity of sending a thief to
catch his thieving partner; at least those doing the sending may not know the
catcher and the thief are partners. But to knowing ask a murderous tyrant to
preside over the writing of a democratic constitution and power to veto any
clause he did not like takes the biscuit. It is not just stupidity but folly to
then refuse to accept the finished product for hogwash it is!
It is a great pity
that so much has been wasted to produce this rubbish; three and half years of
the nation’s man-hours and over US$ 7.5 million – I curse the donors who funded
this because they were warned but would not listen -; etc. Now we are back where
we started in 2008; facing the challenge of how to wrestle power from a
ruthless tyrant and with no democratic constitution to fall back on.
The task ending
this ruthless dictatorship and bring real democratic change was never easy and
it is even tougher now than in 2008 because the last four years have allowed
Mugabe to consolidate his position. He is financially and politically stronger than
he was in 2008. And, as if that was not bad enough, there is a whole army of
daydreamers who have undermined the nation’s resolve to push for change by
telling the people this totally dysfunctional GNU was working. And now the same
idiots are out selling this rubbish COPAC constitution to the nation as the panacea
to all the nation’s problems. It is none other than the flawed and indecisive
Tsvangirai himself leading this charge – at least when he is not otherwise
engaged in his endless and petty domestic squabbles or pointless but costly
globetrotting.
Desperate people do
desperate things; even that feeble excuse is still inadequate to explain why
Zimbabweans ever elected Tsvangirai – the man should be herding goats for
Christ sake and not masquerading as the country’s Prime Minister!
Since you are no longer singing about voting NO as a way of getting a 100 percent democratic constitution crafted for you by the winner (under the Lancaster House Agreement that is Zanu), some briefing on the politics of Zimbabwe is over due.
The GNU was mandated in the GPA signed by the learders on behalf of their parties (Zanu, MDC-T and MDC-M, now MDC-N).But the GPA was crafted on behalf of SADC after the 2008 disputed polls and was supposed to usher the country into an era of undisputed polling and democratic politics guaranteed by SADC and the AU.
The Special Parliametary Committee (Copac) is mandated with the making of a Democratic Constitution for Zimbababwe but it must be approved by the voters in a Referendum. The GPA cannot operate outside or under the Lancaster House Constitution and which is the reason for stripping off the Presdent of his imperial powers without him striking back at it. Under the Lancaster House Constitution, the President has a final say in everything but under the GPA, only party leaders are recgnised – the reason of Parties, horse trading (negotiating) when a stalemate develops in the drafting of the Constitution.
Back again to your Dependence Syndrome, readers are thrust back to the past and finding faults with Tsvangirai not on a Yes or No vote, you are urging. If one’s faults are impeding the Party’s march towards its goal (distractive and being more important) then that individual becomes dispnsable. No individual is more impoortant and above the Party.
Wilbert, you are actually confusing and, at the sametime, criticising the Lancaster House Agreement, specifically, the Imperial Presidential Powers and living in the past by trumpting Tsvangirai’s faults, as a reason for a NO vote against the Copac Draft Constitution.
COPAC was mandated to write a “democratic” constitution for Zimbabwe? And who said this rubbish before us is “democratic”? None other than Mugabe!
I accept that the lens cap to your brain is super glued on and no amount of gentle reasoning can ease it off. Well let see if time and events will force “open” your mental eyes – I am not holding my breathe because none of the events to date have made any difference!
You see but do not to comprehent; now that is really aweful!
Wilbert, read your last sentence on the comment above and tell the readers how it relates to the NO vote on the Copac Draft and the production of a democratic Constitution for you? Also, how is the existence of the Lancaster House Agreement (Constitution), now in force with its President who has imperial powers to over rule everybody and must have the final word, helps you if Zimbabwe voted NO in the Referendum? Do you really expect a democratic enviroment with the Lancaster House Agreement (Constitution) and the imperial Presidency in place?
The Copac Draft Costitution is not democratic but it takes away the imperial powers out of of the Presidency which act makes the position more of a ceremonial and enables a democratic environment to be created by those who are not saddled with a Dependence Syndrome.
The follow up in creating a democratic space, is what is called incremental. Do you now understand its meaning rather than dismissing it as “…this rubbish before us is democratic?” You can take a horse to the water but you cannot force it to drink it.
Any constitution is only as good as the will of the leaders to respect it. For the last 32 years it has been ignored, and only applied when it benefits ZANU-PF.
A YES vote it a strong psychological vote for change (regardless of content), say NO, and ZANU-PF things the people love them.
Saying yes makes them illegitimate in the eyes of Zimbabwe and foreign powers… then it is crunch time
That is not true, in 2000 the people voted NO to Zanu PF’s proposed new constitution because it would have made no difference to the de facto one-party state the nation was living under. This new COPAC draft is not much difference which is why Zanu PF is 97% happy with it. Voting YES will show that we can not tell the difference between a democratic constitution and this rubbish.
I suggest you read the draft for yourself and forget what flawed and indecisive characters like Tsvangirai tell you!
the new constitution is a joke ,i can make a joke in 10 seconds not 3and a half years.the problem is zanu will not adhere to any rules and laws.no or yes wont make any difference to them as their track record suggests.the way i see change is a fully monitored election by international countries to get a fair result or a civil war as the people have had enough oppression.
Super Mondo I agree with you the COPAC constitution
is a joke, it will do nothing to end Mugabe and Zanu PF’s excessive dictatorial
powers and the worst of which is the powers that has put the tyrant and his
thugs above the law.
The international community has never abandoned
Zimbabwe and have always stood up ready to assist but it has been our leaders’
stupidity that has made it impossible for them to do anything. When Tsvangirai
signed the GPA in 2009 from the outset the international community said the
arrangement would not work and time has proven them right. They refused to
bankroll the dysfunctional GNU but could not stop Tsvangirai signing on the
dotted line. History has the habit of repeating itself.
MDC is already out campaigning for a YES vote to
this COPAC constitution and needless to say the same idiots will be crying foul
the day after the constitution is adopted because Mugabe’s thugs are
terrorising MDC supporters, there is no media freedom, etc., etc. The very
things we are saying should be in this COPAC draft and without them the
constitution is rubbish and should be rejected. The international community can
assist pressure Mugabe to ensure the country’s constitution is a democratic one
but if we adopt a fault constitution there is nothing the international
community can do, it will be too late!
Zimbabweans voted for Tsvangirai in droves in 2008
and have since paid dearly for it as the latter has made one blunder after
another. Voting yes for this COPAC rubbish will just be one more MDC blunder
and one for which this nation will pay in hundreds of body bags for many moons
to come!
If you want to free Zimbabwe, do not relie on other people to do it for you but yourself – we should take up arms ourselves not the International Community. It has no oblgation to the liberation of Zimbabwe – that is how we got into this situation in the first place, we relied on the liberation fighters to the country while we were having a good time in London or New York.
Now besides Mugabe, there the secucrates, War Vets, Zanu militia, Chipangano and next time other criminal gangs will come up too and said that they are a part to those that liberated Zimbabwe. Unless we take up arms ourselves there is no end to the claim of those that say they are a part of the people who liberated Zimbabwe. Enough is enough, we should learn from the past.