Grim report on Mugabe’s human rights abuses published

By Henry Makiwa
11 December 2007

A group of doctors and researchers who were in Zimbabwe earlier this year have published a damning report on the escalating incidents of state-sponsored violence against innocent Zimbabweans.
Entitled "We have degrees in violence” the report has been issued by the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa, the Open Society Institute and the Bellevue/NYU programme for survivors of torture. It raises profound questions about the prospects for free and fair elections under Zanu-PF rule, plus concerns about the harassment of lawyers and doctors dealing with cases of a political nature.

According to the report, international medical experts found evidence that the Mugabe regime is systematically utilising torture and violence as a means of deterring political opposition. It documents how victims of state-sanctioned political violence have been tortured and subjected to other human rights abuses, causing devastating health consequences, while millions are forced into exile.

Julie Hayes, the African Region director for OSI said: “The victims of torture and political violence whom our researchers spoke with and examined in Zimbabwe were not only prominent members of the political opposition but also low-level political organisers and ordinary citizens. What it shows is the stark impunity of the Robert Mugabe regime and how it has managed to cover all its wrongdoings from the rest of the world. Many have been targeted and brutalised because of their political affiliations or activities. Victims were in most cases detained under inhuman conditions and denied appropriate access to medical and legal assistance. All of the individuals we examined had clear physical and psychological evidence of torture,” she added.

The issue of violence by state operatives is crucial to the elections that are scheduled for 2008. The opposition insists if the situation on the ground does not improve, they will pull out of the mediated talks and not participate in the polls.