Arrested Vice Chancellor of Great Zimbabwe brutalised by police

By Violet Gonda
30 September 2005

The arrested Vice Chancellor of Great Zimbabwe University Dr Hilda Marima-Matarira said she was physically and verbally brutalised by police in Harare when she was arrested on the 30th of September. The academic who said she was a political prisoner for 4 days, was arrested at gunpoint on charges of theft. But a Harare magistrate’s court dismissed the charges saying the arrest was un-procedural.

The Vice Chancellor told us that she was in a condemned cell in which she slept on the cold floor. She was given food sparingly during the 4 days that she was in custody and was not allowed to see a doctor when she became ill as a result of the mistreatment at the hands of the police. She said the police told her they were following orders.

Dr Marima- Matarira had been arrested in connection with the alleged theft of property worth billions of dollars belonging to Great Zimbabwe University, the collapsed institution of higher learning. Armed police raided a house in Borrawdale where she was staying and impounded property believed to have been stolen from the defunct university.

But the Vice Chancellor said the issue has nothing to do with her work but was political. She said the university was evicted from the government building in which it was renting space, forcing her to store the assets at other locations. The university was forcibly shut by the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Higher Education, Washington Mbizo.

Dr Matarira said there has been a lot of interference by government officials at the university which resulted in the Permanent Secretary shutting academic activities at the university in June 2004.

The feisty woman says she is still being victimised and that she received a letter on Monday ordering her to resign. She also claims that she is still being victimised by the police who are threatening to break into her house to confiscate the equipment. Great Zimbabwe was a private university.

As the first woman Vice Chancellor, she claims that there are people threatened by the fact that she is a woman heading a university. On the day that she was arrested the academic alleged that the Permanent Secretary has threatened her in the past. He allegedly said: “This is an African government and we have ways to deal with you.”

Authorities from the Ministry of Higher Education and the police refused to comment.