Advocacy group claims enough evidence to prosecute Mugabe

By Alex Bell
10 December 2009

A leading advocacy group has this week announced it has enough evidence to warrant the prosecution of Robert Mugabe and members of his ZANU PF party for crimes against humanity.

This evidence, including more than 70 sworn affidavits of survivors and witnesses of systematic rape campaigns led by ZANU PF in 2008, is detailed in a hard hitting report by AIDS-Free World, an advocacy group based in America. The 64 page report (Electing to Rape: Sexual Terror in Mugabe’s Zimbabwe) documents 380 rapes committed by 241 perpetrators, all ZANU PF members who identified themselves to their victims. All the women targeted in the attacks were supporters of Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC party, during last year’s turbulent election period which saw ZANU PF unleash violent attacks on MDC supporters.

Co-director of AIDS-Free World, and a former United Nations special envoy on HIV/AIDS, Stephen Lewis, told SW Radio Africa that the evidence contained in the report is ‘incontrovertible’ and ‘unassailable’.

“Mugabe believes he can sanction rape without fear of consequences and he has used this tactic as a weapon to successfully stay in power,” Lewis explained on Thursday. “Zimbabwe, for this reason, is the biggest test for ending impunity for crimes against humanity.”

The report details how the rape campaign unleashed on the country’s female opposition supporters, and often their children, was both widespread and systematic with recurring patterns, which Lewis explained cannot be coincidental. This includes the uniform physical and emotional brutality of the rapes, the modes of detention and even location of the rapes, the specific types of beatings, and the consistent refusal by the police to investigate the attacks. Some women were forced to watch the rape of their daughters and murder of their husbands and other family members before or after they were raped. Other women were held as sex slaves in ZANU PF camps for weeks at a time.

“There has never before been cases that are so implicitly linked to political affiliation, cases that are so clearly systematic and planned to be a campaign in political brutality,” Lewis explained.

The report states that the ZANU PF government was well aware of the rape campaign that, along with the election violence, was masterminded by the Joint Operations Command (JOC). The report goes on to detail Mugabe’s own complicity in the rapes, explaining how the ageing dictator not only knew about the campaign, but also refused to prevent it or punish those responsible.

“This combination of knowledge, the refusal to prevent, and the failure to punish the widespread political rape requires that Robert Mugabe and members of the JOC should be investigated and prosecuted for their individual criminal liability for the rapes,” the report reads.

Lewis explained on Thursday that Zimbabwe’s police service and justice system is so seriously compromised that such a legal endeavour would not be possible within the country, highlighting the severe limitations of legal accountability in Zimbabwe. He said other alternative routes would have to be followed and that the international community has a crucial role to play. South Africa in particular could be a significant player, as it is a ratified member of the International Criminal Court (ICC), and could try perpetrators of serious international crimes if they entered the country.

“There is also a responsibility on the Southern African Development Community (SADC) as a whole, and it is high time they put their foot down and stopped allowing Mugabe’s impunity,” Lewis said.

Lewis however expressed his concern that these cases will be overlooked, given SADC’s known policy of quiet support for Mugabe. He said the ramifications of this will be widespread. He explained that not only will such an oversight signal the “fundamental disintegration of moral society in Zimbabwe,” but it will also threaten the “moral integrity of the entire southern part of Africa.”

“These are women and children whose lives have been ruined. This is not some trifling little matter, this is overwhelming,” Lewis said. “There is a vital responsibility for international and regional intervention in this case.”