Police & CIO try to block rural radio project in Mberengwa East

By Lance Guma
04 December 2006

Police and Central Intelligence Organisation officers are being accused of trying to block a countrywide initiative known as the Radio Communication Project. The project launched some years ago by several NGO’s is meant to penetrate the remotest rural parts of Zimbabwe via the distribution of radios for locals to be able to listen to independent news broadcasts from outside the country. Attempts to distribute 8 radios in Mberengwa East have attracted the attention of the CIO who are allegedly following up on some of the recipients and taking the radios away.

A statement from Sekai Holland the Secretary for Policy Research in the Tsvangirai MDC says communities in the area ‘have organised themselves and taken time to train, and to take turns as groups, to listen to local and external broadcasts of their choice. Radios are being distributed to local focal persons, identified as such by communities themselves, at the local level, even in these remote areas.’

Thomas Shoko one of those who received a radio under the project, had this taken away from him by CIO officers at Mataga growth point on Thursday last week. Shoko is a well-known activist who has been severely tortured by youth militia in the past. Sarudzai Dube the local Women's Clubs Trainer also had a radio taken away from her over the weekend. Security agents came to her house while she was away and threatened her child into handing over the radio.

Dube is also a well-known activist in the area and had been identified as a key team leader for the project. Just like Shoko she has been harassed by the state in the past and had her home burnt down during the run up to the 2000 parliamentary election by ruling party thugs. The press statement says witnesses in both cases have identified the Mataga police and CIO as having taken both radios.

Sicino Dube, the Midlands South Province Chairperson for the Tsvangirai MDC, told Newsreel the police and CIO are telling the club members that they believe the radios have ‘suspicious’ contents and that they will return them after completing their investigations.