ZIMBABWE is on a beautification drive as it pulls out all stops to host the 44th edition of the Sadc summit.
This has seen a revamp of the country’s roads, especially those in the capital Harare, the sprucing up of the old buildings and a drive to remove vendors and illegal pirate taxis from the central business district.
However, the campaign has been overshadowed by a major clampdown on pro-democracy activists to quell intended demonstrations during the Sadc summit.
The crackdown has intensified in the last one month, with the police detaining over 100 activists, according to rights groups.
There are also claims of torture, a serious offence and breach of domestic and in international laws.
Suspected State agents on Wednesday dragged activists Namatai Kwekweza, Robson Chere, Samuel Gwenzi and Vusumuzi Moyo from a plane at Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport while en-route to a civil society conference in Victoria Falls.
Human rights activists Tinashe Chinopfukwa told the court on Friday last week that before the plane could undergo a pushback, a team of five men came in and forced all accused persons to disembark without advising them why they were being arrested.
The quartet was assaulted such that Chere was unable to sit.
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The court heard that Chere sustained visible injuries, with human rights lawyer Jeremiah Bamu starting that State agents further threatened to rape Chere’s wife or kill her. The court also heard that the activists were forced to chant Zanu PF slogans.
The clampdown on activists has alarmed the world. In South Africa, a coalition partner in government, the Democratic Alliance (DA), wants the region’s biggest economy to push for the movement of the Sadc Summit venue from Zimbabwe.
According to the DA, the “unrepentant Zanu PF regime” has demonstrated that it is prepared to go to any lengths to violate the law to entrench its authoritarian rule. South Africa and by extension Sadc, have an obligation to hold the Zimbabwean government to account, it said.
It said allowing the summit to proceed under the current circumstances would not only endorse Zanu PF’s flagrant abuse of international law, but further undermine the principles upon which Sadc was established.
The World Council of Churches said it condemned in strongest terms “all forms of torture and clampdown on civil society and called on President Mnangagwa to address these violations that undermine the Constitution of Zimbabwe and international human rights laws and release the detained human rights activists”.
The world over, demonstrations are held during key summits, conferences and meetings to raise awareness on certain issues or to influence decisions.
Yearly, demonstrations are held during the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York where the then two-member organisation, December 12 Movement, has made it a ritual to denounce sanctions against Zimbabwe.
Critics see the latest clampdown by the Mnangagwa’s administration as a mirror image of its predecessor, despite claims of breaking with the past.
