Confusion as senior police officer is removed from EU sanctions list

By Tichaona Sibanda
19 February 2010

There is confusion surrounding the removal of a serving senior police officer from the EU sanctions list, who three years ago allegedly led a brutal assault on the Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai in Highfields, Harare.

This confusion arises after Assistant Commissioner Thomsen Todd Jangara, who until Tuesday appeared 57th on the EU list, was removed when officials in Brussels ‘believed’ he was dead. Jangara is alive and well but his name bears a striking resemblance to that of Senior Assistant Commissioner Winston Changara, the former Aide-de-Camp to Robert Mugabe who died in March 2006.

Changara was Mugabe’s most trusted aide who joined the police force in 1980 after taking part in the liberation war of the 1970’s. In 1982 he was transferred to the Police Protection Unit, which is responsible for VIP protection. He spent the next 24 years as Mugabe’s most trusted and leading bodyguard. When he died in 2006 he was declared a national hero and is buried at the Heroes Acre.

As Chief Superintended in charge of Harare district in 2007, Assistant Commissioner Jangara led the crackdown on MDC supporters who had gathered in Highfields for a prayer meeting on March 11, 2007. Tsvangirai and a number of his senior aides were arrested and brutally assaulted whilst in police custody. Jangara was promoted from Chief Superintendent to Assistant Commissioner after he led this brutal crackdown that left one MDC activist dead from gunshot wounds.

The images of Tsvangirai with a swollen face, when the police brought him to court, caused an international outcry that led SADC to intervene and force Mugabe to a roundtable with the MDC.

Jangara told the City Press of South Africa on Thursday that the confusion began when the Financial Gazette published in January this year that he was dead.

‘They mistook me for Winston Changara (Mugabe’s bodyguard). The Gazette however wrote that Tomsen Jangara had died, so the EU people took it from there and included me among other dead people that have been removed from sanctions,’ Jangara said.

The EU list of the names of people removed from the targeted sanctions contains names of ZANU PF officials who died in the last year. These are Vice-President Joseph Msika, politburo member and former cabinet minister Richard Hove and the former Defences Forces commander, General Vitalis Zvinavashe.

Human Rights lawyer, Gabriel Shumba told us he will write to the EU secretariat of the Council of Ministers, pointing out the error.

‘I don’t think there is a problem really. If it is seen as a genuine error, they will simply put him back on the sanctions list. This also vindicates the notion that the MDC supplies the EU with the list of individuals to be added on the list. I don’t think the MDC can do such a thing. There are EU officials in Harare who obviously trawl through the internet looking for people who violate human rights,’ Shumba said.

Diplomats in Brussels said there was significant pressure from the office of the Prime Minister to remove the targeted sanctions. But civil society organizations from Zimbabwe visited Brussels in the last two weeks and campaigned vigorously for the measures to remain.