Court cases against 300 MDC activists drag on in Manicaland

By Tichaona Sibanda
20 April 2010

Almost 300 MDC activists in Manicaland province are still to stand trial, a year after police charged them with trying to reclaim their livestock looted by ZANU PF supporters during the election violence in 2008.

The activists have been appearing in court for remand hearings at least twice a month. For many it involves traveling long distances to appear before magistrates in Mutare, Rusape, Nyanga and Chipinge.

The court delays have also become a huge drain on the financial resources of the MDC in Manicaland, who have to pay legal and travel costs for their activists.

Half were arrested in Nyanga North in March 2009 while another 70 were arrested in Mutasa North. Others charged with ‘theft’ are based in various districts of the province.

MDC spokesman for Manicaland and MP for Makoni South, Pishai Muchauraya, told us Tuesday the livestock which their supporters tried to reclaim was looted during the June 27, 2008 one-man Presidential run off.

In the run up to the election tens of thousands of MDC supporters across the country had their homes and villages destroyed by ZANU PF youths and so called war vets, to intimidate them from voting against ZANU PF.

During the mayhem villagers in the province lost cattle, goats, chickens, ploughs and food stocks harvested from their fields. There has been no intervention from the coalition government to ensure the return of the looted property and no compensation has been paid to the villagers.

In the end, the villagers took the matter into their own hands and approached the ZANU PF looters, demanding their property back. They were promptly arrested by police and then released on bail.

‘We are facing a serious challenge as a party because of the selective application of the law. The irony of the arrests is that the police have so far done nothing to help the people who had their properties destroyed or looted by ZANU PF. The victims were arrested for trying to reclaim their belongings,’ Muchauraya said.

The MP said their activists cannot turn to the police for assistance and have no alternative access to justice. ‘If they try and take back what is theirs, they are arrested. To us this is political persecution and the least the inclusive government can do is to come up with a political solution to this political crisis,’ the MDC legislator added.

Muchauraya reiterated that there was a need for a workable transitional justice and national healing mechanism, to deal with grievances like this.

Last year a Bikita court granted an order allowing 7 villagers to claim US$7 000 from ZANU PF supporters who looted their property. But even though the villagers won the court order, they are unable to get it enforced by the partisan police force.