Often in Zimbabwe, its difficult to separate fact from fiction; this place can be one big rumour mill. However a woman I work with had a horrible experience last night. Because of the lack of rule of law together with a very unprofessional police force, we’re all left shaking our heads as to What To Do. We thought about getting hold of the MDC seeing as they have Mutsekwa as co-minister in Home Affairs but we’re pretty cynical about whether he’ll actually do anything (just look at the circus called the Beitbridge Border post). Still, we’ll give it a bash.

So, here’s a first hand account of her treatment at the hands of the Zimbabwe Republic Police:

I had a nasty incident with the cops last night, when I was driving home from dinner on my own.  10 officers pulled me over, just outside Borrowdale School, and 2 of them threatened me with a gun, saying I hadn’t listened to the order to pull over, despite the fact that I stopped a few meters away from where they flagged me down.  They said that they were going to take me to jail, and that I had a weapon (which was actually the car fire estinguisher).  I managed to remain cool, calm and very polite throughout; and they finally let me go after about 30 minutes of aggressive intimidation and harassment from their side.  I hear that similar incidents have happened to others recently; and recommend not to go that route on your own at night.

One society that we often forget and rarely think of, mainly because, by its very nature it is isolated from our day-to-day association and interaction, is the prison. The conditions in prisons are therefore usually understated unless being narrated by a prisoner.

Recently I met a lady in her fifties carrying a basket of food and a lunch box. She hesitantly approached me and asked, “Son, do you know how I can get to the remand prison near Newlands?”

“Oh yes mama let me show you”, I answered.

She must have realized that I was a bit interested in talking further with her, because she waited a moment longer after I had shown her directions. This was a chance I could not let go. I asked why she was going to the prison at that time of the day carrying such luggage as food. Her face suddenly changed, she turned and spoke slowly with gasps of sighs in between her words. I could see tiny drips of tears making their way along the wrinkles around her eyes. To avoid direct eye contact, she looked down and started to narrate the story of her son who was arrested and sentenced to three months in prison. She said her son was at Matapi in Mbare, and when she got there with the food this morning she heard that he was taken to the Remand Prison. Where he will be taken to after Remand, she is not sure but what she is sure of is that he was sentenced to serve three months and that she was supposed to look for his food daily for that long. She was not sure if she could sustain the three months of moving about every morning, where would she get the money for transport let alone the food itself? It seems the son was the breadwinner of the family and the old lady had to pay for his sins; the whole family behind, so to speak.

The food supply in prisons is reprehensible; families are struggling to feed their imprisoned. A one-year sentence means the family suffers for a year as well. That led me to ask a policeman what happens to those whose relatives are far from the prisons or those who cannot afford to bring food. He chose to use the phrase “survival of the fittest” and didn’t divulge much detail. He was only at liberty to disclose that cigarettes are in demand in prisons. If one has a pack of cigarettes, then he is assured of food as he can trade it with food with those whose relatives can supply it daily.

Zimbabwean prisoners might never face a worse hell than the present. The punishment ripples out to innocent family members who have to supply for food on daily basis. If one member is arrested, practically every family member is in prison. What a horrible state.

What are main issues for the new Constitution? Who determines what is petty and trivial at this point in Zimbabwe? Which issue is supposed to take more weight than the other in forming our new Constitution? I have just read a blog from someone saying that homosexual and gender issues are trivial and should not be magnified as they do not have anything to do with the governance of this country.

I am not for homosexuality but I am a Christian who has been instructed to love the next person as I love myself. I do not hate homosexuals, I just do not agree with what they do and what they believe in. But I am a woman, and gender issues involve me whether I like it or not. The blogger continues to say that Constitutional campaigns have magnified these issues. My question is what campaigns are these? If you have a burning issue and you want it put under the microscope I suggest you have your own campaigns just as those people campaigning for gender are having theirs.

I will talk about what affects me here. It is very important that we deal with gender issues once and for all. Why should I keep quiet when I know that if this issue is left behind, my daughter will face the same challenges that I am facing as a woman? This is an opportunity to make a difference and I am going to grab it by the horns.

To educate you a bit my fellow blogger, gender refers to widely held beliefs, expectations, customs and practices within a society that define masculine and feminine attributes, behavior, roles and responsibilities. Now if anyone is going to be of a governing body which is going to be governing a society, don’t you think they need to have their own individual beliefs and expectations in check?

My point is this; good governance is not going to come about when people in governing spaces do not know their social standing, be they male or female. In fact good governance has got to do with gender issues for a government to work. Every person needs to know who they are, what their roles are and what they are entitled to as human beings. So I say viva to anyone who wants to magnify any issue that they feel is important to them and these issues should be dealt with, and included in the Constitution. If people want to lobby for homosexuality and gender issues let them go ahead. Better yet if there are others who want to have anti homosexual and anti gender campaigns they should also go ahead. What better way to exercise our hoped for democracy and freedom to choose who we are and what we want to be?

Corruption is a deplorable activity that haunts Zimbabwe across all walks of life. Corruption is spreading like a veldt fire and a tough stance by all stakeholders is well overdue. The African Parliamentary Network Against Corruption (APNAC) Zimbabwe chapter has taken it upon its shoulders to weather the storm by calling their first press conference to publicly express their denunciation of any form of corruption in the country.

Speaking at the conference, the Chairman for APNAC, Honourable Willas Madzimure, expressed concern that some public office bearers are busy enriching themselves at a time when the taxpayers are struggling to make ends meet. He called upon the President of Zimbabwe to quickly appoint the Anti Corruption Commission, which might help look into these issues. He also added that the Commission so assigned should promptly give feed feedback to the parliamentarians. Honourable Madzimure also called upon the government to implement the law that requires members of parliament and senior government officials to declare their assets to the state before assuming public office, stressing also that their accumulation of wealth should be put under public scrutiny.

Honourable Madzimure made it clear that Members of Parliament have the right to access any sector to find facts on behalf of the people whom they represent. His statement comes amid reports that the government barred MPs from the Mines and Energy portfolio committee from touring the Chiadzwa diamond fields on a fact-finding mission to understand the background to the allegations of corrupt dealings involving senior government officials.

APNAC expressed condemnation of the mis-allocation of residential stands, approval of substandard and incomplete infrastructure developments and abuse of council property including vehicles. He also expressed concern over the reports that councilors are allegedly allocating themselves houses belonging to the poor and on reports that illustrate corruption by high-level government official and influential business people. He called upon the police to desist from assuming a reluctant stance when handling corruption cases that involve government officials when they are reported.

Though the Honourable Madzimure did not mention any names, it was apparent that the APNAC criticism was directed at the council house scandal and the corruption that has entangled Minister Chombo and the flamboyant businessman, Chiyangwa, who boasts of owning almost a fifth of the city of Harare. The two men are alleged to have connived with top city officials to allocate themselves vast tracts of land. The case is still under police investigation, though a council report clearly pointed out anomalies in the manner in which land deals were undertaken.

Responding to the question whether APNAC is prepared to shoulder potential victimisation and dangerous consequences in their endeavor to combat corruption involving very powerful politicians, APNAC members stressed that they have sacrificially placed themselves on the persecution altar, for the cause of good governance. However to achieve better results the APNAC called for synergies with the police and other interested parties that share the same hatred for corruption.

According to Arkmore Kori, a Kubatana subscriber, our Constitution making awareness programme is focusing on unimportant issues. He suggests that issues such as homosexuality and gender are clouding more major concerns relating to governance and leadership. Here’s his article:

Zimbabwe is being administered by an undemocratically elected government largely because of some constitutional challenges that have made elections worthless. Of course, we already know the election ‘winner’ if elections are held under the present constitution. Thus the current constitutional making process was mainly conceived to allow for free and fair elections so Zimbabweans would be governed by leaders of their choice.

Despite a lot of resources being channelled towards new constitution making, it is unfortunate that two relatively trivial issues – homosexuality and gender – which can’t retrieve us from our leadership and governance crisis, have dominated the constitutional awareness campaigns.

Although most claim homosexuality is alien to Africa, there is evidence it was practiced in Buganda (now Uganda) in the 19th century particularly by Kabaka Mwanga who assumed kingship (or Kabakaship) at the age of eighteen in 1884. This is no justification for legalising homosexuality in the new constitution because who should care what people do behind closed doors? By and large, homosexuality is a bedroom issue, which does not influence the leadership and governance in this country.

Similar concerns can also be raised on gender, which is repossessing the fame it had soon after its invention, although gender sensitive legislation such as the Domestic Violence Act have been passed. Perhaps gender activists are justified to complain about gender legislative implementation and of course, more and more women opportunities, regardless of competence. But constitutional advocacy for women’s rights have been used to shroud discussions on the main issues as if the new constitution is largely intended to address gender imbalances.

Among others, the current constitution gives the Executive too much power. This has stifled democracy, good governance and the rule of law. The President’s power to appoint the Attorney General and the Chief Justice, for example, has compromised the judiciary’s independence and consequently, election processes and outcomes.

The release of the March 2008 election results, for instance, were unlawfully and deliberately delayed. Court appeals by the opposition were ignored.  Political activists have been incarcerated and arbitrarily arrested whilst some have been tortured or murdered by known people who have never been prosecuted because the judiciary has not yet been given the instruction by its proprietor.

Similarly, one would expect discussions on the Access to Information and Privacy Act (AIPPA) to top the constitutional discussion agenda ahead of gender or homosexuality. The electronic media has been a monopoly of the ruling party, and has enabled it to spread its election propaganda at the expense of other political parties. Its polarization and the extent to which its owners dislike a new constitution have been shown by the absence of constitutional awareness information on both radio and television. If ‘station identification songs’ were composed for Fast Track Land Reform Programme and bearer cheques awareness raising, why can’t the same be done for the new constitution?

This prejudice is augmented by the Public Order and Security Act (POSA), which has seen major election meetings of the opposition being indefinitely postponed or called off. Historically, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have been fearless to take up such ‘sensitive’ issues. Unfortunately they are receiving binding instructions from the state controlled community entry points. Permission into communities for constitutional discussions is given on condition NGOs and communities do not talk about anything concerning the Executive’s dictatorial powers, President’s term of office; the Kariba Draft, AIPPA, and POSA. Possibly, this is why some have turned to ‘soft’ issues such as gender and homosexuality.

In Zimbabwe because of the lack of US and Rand coins shoppers are offered their change from purchases made in a variety of forms. These include bubble gum, suckers, packets of 3 minute noodles, dodgey looking chocolates from other failed states and bananas. Last night a friend told me that she recently got her change in headache tablets – Paracetemol I think she said. Maybe we should lobby for headache tablets all round as change because of what we have to put up with in Zimbabwe. A good example is Morgan Tsvangirai’s latest idiotic statement. He reckons that Zimbabwe is no longer at risk to investors and that the political crisis that destroyed the economy no longer exists. I wonder what he makes of the latest bid on the part of the Government of Zimbabwe to take over businesses, or the massive failure in our health and education systems or the continued farm invasions and the ongoing decimation of our agricultural sector? Never mind the ongoing political violence and disrespect for the rule of law. MT clearly needs a wake up pill or two. But then again both he and Mugabe are desperate for money from international sources to make right the wrongs of the last decade, so they’ll say anything. And meanwhile, who gets to keep the money made from diamonds and Zimbabwe’s other natural resources? Zvakwana!