Government targeting student leadership ahead of elections

By Tererai Karimakwenda
15 November, 2007

Student organizations have said they believe university officials are under government instruction to target influential student leaders and remove them from campuses around the country, ahead of the elections scheduled for next year. They referred to the escalating assaults, arrests and evictions of student leaders at major universities as evidence of this campaign.

There have been six expulsions at the National University of Science and Technology so far this year. Half the student leadership at the University of Zimbabwe campus in Harare is due to face disciplinary hearings, and
student leaders were dragged from exam rooms and thrown off campus at Great Zimbabwe University last week, without the benefit of disciplinary hearings.

McDonald Lewanika, a coordinator with the Student Solidarity Trust, said he believes what is happening now is a result of a government directive that dates back to 2002, just before the presidential elections. He explained that a statement was released at the time by the Ministry of Education, to the effect that they would no longer close institutions of higher learning whenever students protested. Instead, they would weed out students regarded as “bad influences” on the student unions.

Lewanika added: “What is happening cannot be viewed outside the context of elections that will be taking place in this country next year, a couple of months from now. What we have is a process whereby different university authorities are weeding out people who they think are critical of the government of Zimbabwe within the students’ movement and throwing them off campus so that they will not be able to influence anything where students are concerned, during that critical period.”

In some cases the accused are being charged with leading students in violent incidents that occurred on campuses earlier this year. In other cases the students are being prosecuted for criticizing the government’s neglect of education. Just pointing out mere facts in Zimbabwe has become a crime, as opposed to the constitutional right that it actually is.

The students effectively have no way of expressing their frustrations at a system that is making it impossible to get a decent education. A strong statement released by the Zimbabwe National Students Union (ZINASU) said in part: “The government of the day seems to be at unease because the students, as the general populace, are fast losing their patience and cannot wait for a change in governance.”