Amnesty International has just published a press release on Zimbabwe:

Abuse of human rights continues under unity government

Amnesty International today called on President Mugabe and Prime Minister Tsvangirai to fulfil their promise to reform state institutions, in a bid to end human rights violations that have continued in the country since the formation of the unity government one year ago.

Torture, harassment and politically motivated prosecutions of human rights defenders and perceived opponents have persisted, while villagers in parts of Zimbabwe have suffered ceaseless intimidation by supporters of former ruling party ZANU-PF.

“The Attorney General’s office, police and army have been left to freely violate human rights in pursuit of a political agenda,” said Erwin van der Borght, Africa Director at Amnesty International.

“By delaying reform, the situation in Zimbabwe remains fragile as perpetrators continue to escape justice and are instead effectively given the all clear to continue violating human rights.”

Amnesty International called on the unity government to end on-going harassment of human rights defenders. Several peaceful protests organized by civic movement Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) were violently broken up by police in 2009.

Seventeen human rights and political activists who were abducted by state security agents in 2008 continue to face charges that are widely believed to be trumped up. One of them, Jestina Mukoko, director of the Zimbabwe Peace Project, had her prosecution permanently stayed by the Supreme Court in September 2009 because of overwhelming evidence that she had been tortured.

“The government must end the incessant harassment of human rights activists and take steps to seriously protect rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly,” said Erwin van der Borght.

The Zimbabwean army and intelligence services, as well as the Attorney General’s office, have remained under ZANU-PF control, following an agreement brokered by the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) in 2008. The police are co-chaired by ZANU-PF and MDC-T ministers.

“The onus is on President Mugabe and ZANU-PF to ensure that key institutions under their control are reformed to end the culture of impunity that still threatens stability in the country,” said Erwin van der Borght .

Amnesty International’s call for reform comes amid reports that villagers in parts of Zimbabwe are being threatened with violence by army backed supporters of ZANU-PF, in an attempt to force them to endorse the heavily criticized Kariba draft constitution.

The Kariba draft constitution, agreed by unity government parties in September 2007, has been strongly criticized by some civil society organizations as an attempt by the parties to impose a constitution without consultation.

Villagers in Mutoko, Muzarabani and MT. Darwin are reportedly being warned that they will face beatings unless they support the ZANU-PF position. Similar threats were made and materialised in the run up to the June 2008 presidential elections..

“These are early warning signs that the situation could deteriorate if no urgent measures are taken to stop state security agents from carrying out violent political campaigns.”

“Past involvement on their part has resulted in gross human rights violations, including deaths and torture of perceived opponents.”

The government has so far failed to investigate gross human rights violations allegedly carried out by security forces during the run-up to the second round of the 2008 presidential elections, which left at least 200 people dead, over 9,000 injured and tens of thousands displaced.

“The unity government must investigate past and present allegations of human rights violations by state security agents, including torture and ill treatment of detainees,” said Erwin van der Borght.

Gross human rights violations have also been taking place within the army.

At least two soldiers were tortured to death in October 2009 while being interrogated by intelligence and military police officials in Harare. Another soldier was reported to have committed suicide while in solitary confinement and several others are still receiving medical treatment for injuries caused by torture.

The victims had been arrested along with at least 95 others, on suspicion of breaking into an armoury at Pomona barracks and stealing 21 guns.

“Zimbabwean state bodies are riddled with human rights abusers that in many cases carry out violations with impunity,” said Erwin van der Borght.

“Without genuine reform of institutions this abuse is very likely to persist.”

When any section of the Zimbabwe civil service goes on strike, the usual retort from the long-suffering public is:  “How do you tell the difference?” A year after the heady inauguration of the country’s power-sharing government between autocratic President Robert Mugabe, 85, and his former opposition opponent, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, Zimbabweans want to know: “How do you tell the difference? (between this government and Mugabe’s previous regime).” – Comment from Sapa

Raymond Majongwe, head of the Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe clearly has the right idea when he says that the striking civil servants should not return to work and that the government should “sell diamonds and we share that wealth instead of it being enjoyed by few individuals.” It is completely unacceptable that members of Zanu PF and the MDC exploit the resources of Zimbabwe whilst citizens struggle to survive on the crumbs that are thrown to them from the chefs tables.

The postal service attached a short note to a parcel that we got in the post recently. They apologised for the “dirty state” of the envelope being delivered to us. Inside was the much awaited book, SMS Uprising: Mobile Activism in Africa published by Pambazuka Press. Never mind the fact that our copy is a bit buckled and battered it makes for an incredibly interesting read and not just because Kubatana and our very own Amanda Atwood is featured in it! Sokari Ekine has done a fabulous job editing a series of essays on mobile activism and we urge you to get a copy.

Anne Perkins writing on guardian.co.uk described SMS Uprising as a “book that will help explain how mobile phones can be used in the field to anyone daunted by technology.” She went on to say that “theory is one thing: but where these essays really come alive is in the descriptions of projects that have already worked.” And she cites Kubatana as an example of one of these projects.

Read more here

Occasional Kubatana blogger Fungai Machirori recently posted a very interesting comment on a health listserv in response to an online conversation about who should take responsibility for HIV prevention. I kind of thought it was a no-brainer. Individuals should of course. But then again there are men involved and condoms and men in general go together like Mugabe and Democracy.

Here’s Fungai for you:

Ensuring power to every “i” Fungai Machirori

Last year, South Africa developed a remarkable graphic to accompany its World AIDS Day campaign message: a graphic consisting entirely of a myriad letter “i”s that together made up the shape of South Africa’s map.

The tagline that accompanied the graphic read “I am responsible. We are responsible. South Africa is taking responsibility.”

What each of those little “i”s stood for was a South African; an individual taking responsibility for adopting health-promoting behaviours that would ultimately yield the collective national responsibility needed for an effective response to the urgency of HIV and AIDS.

I give this example because I feel it is particularly relevant to the topic at hand – whose responsibility it is to prevent HIV.

I believe that only once every individual is able to identify himself or herself as that “i” with the highest levels of self-efficacy, or confidence in one’s own ability to take responsible action, can we realise a significant change to the emergency that is the HIV and AIDS pandemic.

Building that self-efficacy encompasses creating a range of competences, from the basic ability to understand what HIV and AIDS are, to comprehending the implications of HIV infection or re-infection, as well as the benefits of preventing such infection, all the way to being able to overcome the many barriers that may exist as impediments to positive behaviour change.

Make no mistake, this is no easy process. Because we are all individuals of differing backgrounds and circumstances, our competencies, and the rates at which these can be developed will differ.

What levels of self-efficacy will a 16-year-old girl given to her sister’s widow as a replacement wife (knowing well that her sister died of a long and mysterious illness) have to demand an HIV test even if she knows about the virus and its effects, but is bound, by family tradition, to become this man’s wife without questioning?

What self-efficacy can a baby, still in his mother’s womb, speak of if his mother never receives antenatal services and does not discover her own positive HIV status until after her baby is born and already infected?

How then do we ensure power to every “i”?

A blanket approach to HIV and AIDS programming is definitely not the right way. Insensitive messaging that fails to take into consideration that we are all at different levels of literacy, understanding and openness about the collective and individual impact of the pandemic is more detrimental than helpful as it only achieves the churning out of impersonal, and therefore, inaccessible content.

Some people still just need to hear the basics – what HIV is, how it brings on AIDS, how it is transmitted and how it is prevented.

And messages and programmes for these individuals need to be tailored in an attractive, interactive fashion that eliminates pedagogy by welcoming debate, discussion and personal negotiation.

Also, we need to stop thinking only in conventional formats because quite honestly, far too many of the information-rich booklets and CD-ROMs dished out generously by well-meaning organisations are NOT being read or utilised.

I remember looking on in horror as a neighbour used the pages of an HIV prevention book I had given him to get a fire going in his backyard.

Noticing my anguish, he apologised but told me that there was no other practical use for the book beyond the one he had found.

“Thankfully, I have toilet paper,” he joked.

I went away wondering how many other people might feel this way about Information and Education Communication (IEC) materials that they feel have no resonance with them.

We need to be doing things differently, dynamically and determinedly all the time within an environment that is constantly changing, but at the same time staying very much the same.

Also, we need to think creatively about how to overcome the many socio-cultural and economic barriers to information dissemination and knowledge assimilation; how to jump over those internal walls that cement ideas within people’s minds that saying “not yet” or demanding a condom during sex is taboo and unforgivable; how to ensure that we are catering to communities and societies and individuals at their points of need, and not at the points that we estimate on their behalf; how to be relevant.

In short, how do we ensure that when an individual makes a decision that can have an impact on the state of their health, he or she is fully equipped with the artillery of internalised practical and practicable information?

At the same time as we seek to answer this question, we must focus attention on the dire need to strengthen our HIV service delivery systems to the point where people can access the different prevention, treatment, care and support packages that they require in an efficient, effective and professional(in terms of the health service providers) manner.

Our role as programmers, advocates, researchers and role models is two-fold: firstly, we must take personal responsibility for our own behaviours ensuring that they are positive and health-promoting.

Too many jokes abound about how any workshop that involves HIV programmers and advocates degenerates, after hours, into a ‘sex shop’.

This is the unfortunate badge of embarrassment that many associate our sector with, particularly as it identifies us as obvious hypocrites who subscribe to the mantra, “Do as I say, not as I do.”

Only once we are right in our own ways can we strike a cord with our audiences so that we may pass the mantle of responsibility on to them, to capacitate them to answer emphatically, whenever asked whose responsibility it is to prevent HIV, that indeed it is “i”.

Imagine if we could draw out a map, not just of South Africa, but of every nation in our region from the pledge made by every “i”, every person putting their hand up to say, “I am responsible to prevent HIV”.

This map would certainly mark the beginnings of a new Africa.

The European Union (EU) will lift sanctions against President Robert Mugabe and his top allies only after the Zimbabwean leader and his former opposition foes fully implement a power-sharing agreement signed in 2008, a group of British parliamentarians said in Harare on Monday according to ZimOnline.

Sounds about right.