The Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called for the establishment of an independent complaint system in Zimbabwe to investigate public complaints against the nation’s security services.
HRW made the call against the backdrop of allegations – including violent attacks, abductions, torture – against security operatives in the country.
After the country’s August 2018 presidential election, there were reports of violent abuses on the streets of its capital, Harare.
Uniformed soldiers, according to the HRW, indiscriminately fired live ammunition at people protesting delayed election results.
The human rights watchdog said its investigations found that security forces used excessive and lethal force to crush nationwide protests in January 2019.
In a Twitter post, President Emmerson Mnangagwa called for ‘an independent investigation into what occurred in Harare’ and said ‘those responsible should be identified and brought to justice’.
The Motlanthe Commission of Inquiry later found that six people died and 35 others were injured by state security forces.
However, Mnangagwa has not implemented the commission’s recommendations, including holding to account members of the security forces responsible for abuses and compensating the families of those killed or who lost property.
‘Local groups reported that security forces fired live ammunition that killed 17 people, and uniformed soldiers raped at least 17 women during and after these protests’, HRW Southern Africa Director, Dewa Mavhinga, said in a statement.
‘No security personnel have been arrested or prosecuted. In May 2020, the local rights group, the Zimbabwe Peace Project, found that the police and army topped the list of perpetrators of human rights violations in the country’.
It urged the Mnangagwa government to take ‘meaningful’ action to demonstrate that it is serious about upholding human rights and the rule of law.
‘It should ensure that security force personnel responsible for abuses – regardless of rank – are prosecuted in accordance with national and international law’, the statement aded.
‘Given the scale of security force abuses, the establishment of an independent complaint system – as provided for in Zimbabwe’s Constitution – to receive and investigate public complaints against the security services, is long overdue.
‘Once set up, the complaint system’s findings should be promptly acted upon’.
Source: Human Rights Watch
Photo source: Paul Kagame
