Freed human rights activists harassed by security agents

By Henry Makiwa
16 August 2007

SIXTY Zimbabwean human rights activists who were deported from Zambia spoke of the harrowing time suffered at the hands of state security agents upon arrival on home soil.

Dzimbabwe Chimbwa, the legal representative of the Zimbabwe Coalition on Debt and Development (ZCDD), said a joint effort of Zambian immigration authorities and Zimbabwean authorities at Chirundu border post curtailed their efforts to attend a conference dubbed the People’s Summit, currently running parallel to the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) governments’ meeting in the Zambian capital.

“Both the Zambian and Zimbabwean authorities seem to have connived to deny our clients their constitutional right to travel and practice legally accepted humanitarian activity as espoused within the United Nations and even the SADC charter. It is a serious violation to the citizenry’s rights to movement as stipulated under the universal bill of rights, ” Chimbwa told swradioafrica.

“The Zambians flushed them out despite having produced valid immigration documents and handed them into the hands of Zimbabwean security agents who interrogated them, stripped them, searched them and confisticated some valuable material. It was a particularly discomforting, degrading and humiliating experience for the ladies amongst our delegation who had their undergarments stripped and thrown about by the uncouth agents.”

Chimbwa said at the fore of the perpetrators of the harassment were agents of the dreaded Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) assisted by the eager aid of a mixture of the police and the soldiers. The sixty activists were detained and questioned for nine hours before they were finally bundled into a bus and escorted all the way to Harare from the Chirundu border post, “to ensure they do not attempt to sneak back into Zambia.”

Delegates said they may have been denied entry into Zambia solely because the Zimbabwean authorities are avoiding the embarrassing threat that civil society poses if they highlighted the true state of affairs to the international community. They added that what the authorities were most afraid of was a demonstration by Zimbabwean activists, in Zambia.

According to Hopewell Gumbo, the head of delegation of the ZCDD, the activists were illegal deported and apprehended as they were detained without charge.

“The Zambians actually allowed us past their border post and while we were regrouping and getting ready to resume the journey to Lusaka, they made an about turn, recalled us and threw us instead into the hands of the CIOs,” Gumbo said.

“It is quite obvious that the Mugabe regime wants to put a shine in their act hence are trying to avoid any assumed nuisances to spoil their Lusaka party. But our alliance works across SADC for the rights of the underprivileged, women and children that is why we wanted to be present in Zambia with our fellow brothers within the alliance to tell the Zimbabwean story.”