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Please find below the Executive Summary of the report. The report can be
downloaded in full at the following link:
http://physiciansforhumanrights.org/library/report-2009-01-13.html
A video of Frank Donaghue, CEO of Physicians for Human Rights, launching the
report is also available at the following link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaXowZh-XCM
_________________________________________________________________________
HEALTH IN RUINS: A Man-Made Disaster in Zimbabwe
An Emergency Report by Physicians for Human Rights January 2009
PREFACE
What happens when a government presides over the
dramatic reversal of its population’s access to food, clean water, basic
sanitation, and healthcare? When government policies lead directly to the
shuttering of hospitals and clinics, the closing of its medical school, and the
beatings of health workers, are we to consider the attendant deaths and injuries
as any different from those resulting from a massacre of similar
proportions?
Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) witnesses the utter collapse of Zimbabwe’s
health system, once a model in southern Africa. These shocking findings should
compel the international community to respond as it should to other human rights
emergencies. PHR rightly calls into question the legitimacy of a regime that, in
the report’s words, has abrogated the most basic state functions in protecting
the health of the population. As the report documents, the Mugabe regime has
used any means at its disposal, including politicizing the health sector, to
maintain its hold on power.
Instead of fulfilling its obligation to
progressively realize the right to health for the people of Zimbabwe, the
Government has taken the country backwards, which has enabled the destruction of
health, water, and sanitation – all with fatal consequences.
Heedless of concern for the population of Zimbabwe from world leaders and
groups such as PHR, the Government has denied access to the country, detained
journalists, tortured human rights activists, and even refused visas to former
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, U.S. President Jimmy Carter, and Graça
Machel. PHR’s team members legally entered the country and were transparent
about the purpose of conducting a health assessment.
Nevertheless, the
Government apparently planned and then falsely reported their arrest at the end
of the investigation. Such actions are a desperate attempt by Robert Mugabe to
conceal the appalling situation of his country’s people and to prevent the world
from knowing how his Government’s malignant policies have led to the destruction
of infrastructure, widespread disease, torture, and death.
This report is yet another wake-up call to Zimbabwe’s neighbors and all U.N.
member states for urgent intervention to save lives and prevent more deaths.
These findings add to the growing evidence that Robert Mugabe and his regime
may well be guilty of crimes against humanity.
Richard J. Goldstone, Former U.N. Chief Prosecutor,
International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda (ICTY and
ICTR); Current PHR Board Member
Mary Robinson Chair, Realizing Rights: The Ethical
Globalization Initiative; Former President of Ireland; Former U.N. High
Commissioner for Human Rights Chair,
The Most Reverend Desmond M. Tutu, OMSG, DD, FKC, Anglican
Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town; Chair – The Elders
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW
Physicians for Human Rights sent an emergency delegation to Zimbabwe in
December 2008 to investigate the collapse of healthcare. The health and
nutritional status of Zimbabwe’s people has acutely worsened this past year due
to a cholera epidemic, high maternal mortality, malnutrition, HIV/AIDS,
tuberculosis, and anthrax. The 2008 cholera epidemic that continues in 2009 is
an outcome of the health systems collapse, and of the failure of the state to
maintain safe water and sanitation. This disaster is man-made, was likely
preventable, and has become a regional issue since the spread of cholera to
neighbor states.
The health crisis in Zimbabwe is a direct outcome of the violation of a
number of human rights, including the right to participate in government and in
free elections and the right to a standard of living adequate for one’s health
and well being, including food, medical care, and necessary social services.
Robert Mugabe’s ZANUPF regime continues to violate Zimbabweans’ civil,
political, economic, social, and cultural rights.
The collapse of Zimbabwe’s health system in 2008 is unprecedented in scale
and scope. Public-sector hospitals have been shuttered since November 2008.
While some facilities remain open in the private sector, these are operating on
a US-dollar system and are charging fees ranging from $200 USD in cash for a
consultation, $500 USD for an in-patient bed, and $3,000 USD for a Cesarean
section. With fees in reach for only the wealthy, the majority are being denied
access to health care.
» International human rights framework
Zimbabwe is a
party to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
(ICESCR or the Covenant), the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), the
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women
(CEDAW), and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights. The Government
has a legally binding obligation to respect, protect, and fulfill these rights
for all people within its jurisdiction.
The right to health imposes core obligations, which require access to health
facilities on a non discriminatory basis, the provision of a minimum essential
package of health-related services and facilities, including essential food,
basic sanitation and adequate water, essential medicines, and sexual and
reproductive health services, including obstetric care. Even with limited
resources, the Government is required to give first priority to the most basic
health needs of the population and to the most vulnerable sections of the
population.
» Methods for this investigation
During a seven-day
investigation to Zimbabwe (1320 December 2008) conducted by four human rights
investigators, including two physicians with expertise in public health and
epidemiology, PHR interviewed and met with 92 participants, including healthcare
workers in private and public hospitals and clinics, medical students from both
of the medical schools in Zimbabwe, representatives from local and international
NGOs, representatives from U.N. agencies, Zimbabwean government health
officials, members of parliament, water and sanitation engineers, farmers, and
school teachers. The PHR team visited four of the ten provinces in Zimbabwe, in
both urban and rural areas. Provinces visited included Harare, Mashonaland
Central, Mashonaland West, and Mashonaland East.
FINDINGS
» The economic collapse
A
causal chain runs from Mugabe’s economic policies, to Zimbabwe’s economic
collapse, food insecurity and malnutrition, and the current outbreaks of
infectious disease. These policies include the land seizures of 2000, a failed
monetary policy and currency devaluations, and a cap on bank withdrawals.
Mugabe’s land seizures destroyed Zimbabwe’s agricultural sector, which provided
45% of the country’s foreign exchange revenue and livelihood for more than 70%
of the population. Hyperinflation has ensued while salary levels have not kept
pace. A government physician in Harare showed PHR her official pay stub; her
monthly gross income in November
2008 was worth 32 U.S. cents ($0.32 USD).
The unemployment rate is over 80%. Low-income households have had to reduce the
quantity and quality of food. The Mugabe ZANU-PF government must be held
accountable for the violation of the right to be free from hunger.
» Public health system collapse
The Government of
Zimbabwe has abrogated the most basic state functions in protecting the health
of the population – including the maintenance of public hospitals and clinics
and the support for the health workers required to maintain the public health
system. These services have been in decline since 2006, but the deterioration of
both public health and clinical care has dramatically accelerated since August
2008.
› Healthcare and healthcare delivery
As of December 2008,
there were no functioning critical care beds in the public sector in Zimbabwe.
The director of a mission hospital told PHR:
“We see women with eclampsia who have been seizing for 12 hours. There is no
intensive care unit here, and now there is no intensive care in Harare.
If we
had intensive care, we know it would be immediately full of critically ill
patients. As it is, they just die.”
Life expectancy at birth has fallen dramatically from 62 years for both sexes
in 1990 to 36 years in 2006 – 34 years for males and 37 years for females, the
world’s lowest.
› Limits to access: affordability, transportation, closures Since the
dollarization of the economy in November 2008, only a tiny elite with
substantial foreign currency holdings have any real access to healthcare.
Transport costs, even within Harare, have made getting to work impossible for
many healthcare employees. A rural clinic staff nurse reported that since he
lived at the clinic, he had no difficulties in getting to work; however, since
bus fare to get to the nearest town to collect his monthly salary cost more than
the entire salary, it made no sense to collect it. He had not done so since
April 2008. A senior government official said: Government salaries are simply
rotting in the bank. When asked about how the absence of healthcare workers was
affecting HIV treatment, the official said: This is not a strike. The problem is
the staff and the patients cannot come due to travel costs.
Between September and November 2008 most wards in the public hospitals
gradually closed. The most abrupt halt in healthcare access occurred on 17
November 2008, when the premier teaching and referral hospital in Harare,
Parirenyatwa, closed along with the medical school.
› Essential medicines and supplies
Access to essential
medications was raised by nearly all providers interviewed. In addition to drug
shortages, medical supplies (including cleaning agents, soap, surgical gloves,
and bandages) were also in critically short supply—or absent altogether. A rural
clinic nurse
reported:
“Right now I have no anti-hypertensives, no anti- asthmatics, no analgesics,
nothing for pain. ... I have a woman in labor right now, and I have no way to
monitor blood pressure ... and I have no suture material to do a repair if she
tears.”
› Health information and suppression
The Mugabe regime
intentionally suppressed initial reports of the cholera epidemic and has since
denied or underplayed its gravity. The Minister of Information and Publicity,
Sikhanyiso Ndlovu, reportedly ordered government-controlled media to downplay
the cholera epidemic, which he said had given the country’s enemies a chance to
exert more pressure on President Robert Mugabe to leave office. The Minister
instructed the media to turn a blind eye to the number of people who have died
or [have become] infected with cholera, and instead focus on what the Government
and NGOs are doing to contain the epidemic.
PHR heard from several sources in Zimbabwe that the Government has
intentionally suppressed information regarding increasing malnutrition.
PHR
asked a nurse staffing a public-sector clinic in a rural district if there had
been cases of malnutrition. The nurse became visibly anxious and then
replied:
“Malnutrition is very political. We are not supposed to have hunger in
Zimbabwe. So even though we do see it, we cannot report it.”
DETERMINANTS OF HEALTH
» Failed sewerage and sanitation systems Before the ZANU-PF government
nationalized municipal water authorities in 2006, water treatment and delivery
systems worked, although suboptimally.
The Mugabe regime, however,
politicized water for political gain and profit, policies that proved
disastrous, and which have clearly contributed to the ongoing cholera
epidemic.
All Harare residents PHR interviewed reported that trash collection has
effectively ceased. Throughout Harare, and especially in the poor high-density
areas outside the capital, PHR investigators saw detritus littering streets and
clogging intersections. Steady streams of raw sewage flow through the refuse and
merge with septic waste. A current Ministry of Health official reported to PHR:
There is no decontamination of waste in the country.
» Nutrition and food security
The U.N. Food and
Agricultural Organization (FAO) predicts that some 5.1 million (45% of the
population) who will require food aid by early 2009 in order to survive.
Agricultural output has dropped 50-70% over the past seven years. The ZANU-PF
government has exacerbated food insecurity for Zimbabweans in 2008 by blocking
international humanitarian organizations from delivering food aid and
humanitarian aid to populations in the worst-affected rural areas. Patients with
HIV/AIDS and TB are especially vulnerable to food insecurity.
In the months following the March 2008 elections, the Mugabe regime used food
as a weapon of war against MDC supporters and the rural poor. On 31 December
2008, a government official in Chivhu prevented WFP from distributing food aid:
“The villagers accused the chief of being corrupt and diverting donor aid and
distributing it along party lines. They indicated that . . . the chief and his
ZANU-PF supporters used to source maize from the nearby Grain Marketing Board
and then sell it to the poor villagers.” A leader of a health NGO reported
that:
“There is no food in many of the hospitals and there is starvation in the
prisons.”
» Current health crisis: Cholera
The current cholera
epidemic in Zimbabwe appears to have begun in August 2008. As of this writing,
more than 1,700 Zimbabweans have died from the disease and another 35,000 people
have been infected. The U.N. reports that cholera has spread to all of
Zimbabwe’s ten provinces, and to 55 of the 62 districts (89%) and that the
cumulative case fatality rate (CFR) across the country has risen to 5.0% - five
times greater than what is typical in cholera outbreaks. Control has not been
reached: There has been a doubling of both cases and deaths during the last
three weeks of December, 2008.
› Cholera infectivity, epidemiology, and treatment The origin of the current
cholera epidemic appears to stem from the failure of the Mugabe regime to
maintain water purification measures and manage sewerage systems. Civic
organizations in Harare warned of a cholera time-bomb in 2006, but the Mugabe
regime ignored the warning signs. Not until 4 December 2008 did Zimbabwe’s
Ministry of Health and Child Welfare finally request aid to respond to the
cholera outbreak by declaring a national emergency. This negligence represents a
four-month delay since the start of the cholera outbreak, but at least a
three-year delay in responding to the water and sanitation breakdowns, which
have allowed cholera to flourish.
Death rates from cholera are usually under 1%; however, in the current
Zimbabwe epidemic, the cumulative death rate for the country is around 5%, and
more than 40% of all districts have case fatality rates above 10%.
PHR
asked a senior government official responsible for cholera surveillance why
Zimbabwe’s case fatality rate was more than five times greater. She attributed
the high death rate to three causes. First, in the initial phase there simply
were no supplies, such as ORS and IV fluids. Second, few clinic or hospital
staff were sufficiently experienced or trained to respond to cholera, and many
patients died even in facilities that had adequate supplies. Finally, the issue
of transport costs for patients and staff, exacerbated by the closure of the
public hospitals, meant that many patients either could not reach care, or
reached care in advanced dehydration, and could not be saved.
» Current health crisis: Anthrax
WHO has reported some
200 human cases of anthrax since November 2008 with eight confirmed deaths.
These cases were attributed to the ingestion of animals (cattle and goats) that
had died of anthrax. Zimbabweans avoid eating animals that have died of disease
– but these cases appear to occurred in starving rural people scavenging
carrion.
PHR was told that veterinary anthrax control programs in Zimbabwe, which had
included regular monthly control programs, have been dramatically curtailed in
the economic collapse. The surviving herds are now much more vulnerable to
infectious diseases.
» Current Health Crisis: HIV/AIDS
UNAIDS figures show
that Zimbabwe has a severe generalized epidemic of HIV-1, with an overall adult
(ages 15-49) HIV prevalence rate of 15.3%. An estimated 1.3 million adults and
children in Zimbabwe are living with HIV infection in 2008. Of these, some
680,000 were women of childbearing age.
In 2007, some 140,000 Zimbabweans
died of AIDS, and the current toll is estimated at 400 AIDS deaths per day.
Access to HIV/ AIDS care and treatment is threatened by the current collapse and
HIV programs are currently capped: some 205,000 people are thought to be taking
Anti-Retrovirals (ARVs), but no major program is currently able to enroll new
patients. Some 800,000 Zimbabweans are thought to require therapy, or will
require it in the coming months-years.
PHR investigators received corroborating reports from donors and HIV/AIDS
patients in Zimbabwe that ZANU-PF government officials had plundered $7.3
million USD in humanitarian aid for HIV/AIDS treatment – part of $12.3 million
USD from the Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
Following public
outrage over the scandal months later in November 2008, the ZANU-PF-controlled
reserve bank returned the stolen funds to the Global Fund.
For HIV/AIDS the most severe threat has been the interruption of regular
supplies of antiretroviral drugs. Multiple key informants, patients, and
providers told PHR that ARV supplies had become irregular due to breakdowns in
drug delivery, distribution, provision, and theft of ARV drugs by ZANU-PF
operatives. Most troubling were reports that some physicians were switching
patients on established ARV regimens to other regimens based not on clinical
need, but on drug availability. This can lead to drug resistant HIV strains.
These dangerous practices constitute a significant threat to public health since
the development and transmission of multi-drug resistant variants of HIV in
Zimbabwe could undermine not only Zimbabwe’s HIV/ AIDS program, but regional
programs as well.
» Current health crisis: Tuberculosis
PHR asked an expert
working with the national program to describe the status of the program in
December 2008: “There is no politically correct way to say this – the TB program
in Zimbabwe is a joke. The national TB lab has one staff person. There is no one
trained in drug sensitivity testing. The TB reference lab is just not
functioning. This is a brain drain problem.
The lab was working well until 2006 and has since fallen apart. The DOTS
program in 2000 was highly effective, but that has broken down now too.
There
is no real data collection system for TB. This stopped in 2006 as well.”
Both MDR-TB and possible XDR-TB (a largely fatal and often
untreatable
form) have emerged in Zimbabwe, but the critical capacity to
diagnose and manage these infections has collapsed.
» Current health crisis: Maternal morbidity and mortality Maternal
health in Zimbabwe has deteriorated greatly over the past
decade.
The maternal mortality rate has risen from 168 (per 100,000)
in 1990 to 1,100 (per 100,000) in 2005. The major contributors are HIV/ AIDS and
a significant decline in availability and quality of maternal health services.
PHR interviewed several Harare mothers at a distant Mission Hospital who had
sought obstetric care. One went to Mbuya Nehanda Government Maternity Hospital
for a cesarean section on 14 November 2008.
She was told that the operation
could not be performed because there were no nurses, doctors, or
anesthesiologists at work. Another woman said:
“I wanted to have my baby in Harare but Parirenyatwa hospital was
closed.
I was having my prenatal care with my own doctor at [a private
clinic] but they wanted so much money. They wanted only U.S. dollars, in cash.
$3,000 dollars for the surgeon, $140 dollars for the nurse, and $700 dollars for
the doctor who puts you to sleep.“
CONCLUSIONS
The health and healthcare crisis in Zimbabwe
is a direct outcome of the malfeasance of the Mugabe regime and the systematic
violation of a wide range of human rights, including the right to participate in
government and in free elections and egregious failure to respect, protect and
fulfill the right to health.
The findings contained in this report show, at a minimum, violations of the
rights to life, health, food, water, and work. When examined in the context of
28 years of massive and egregious human rights violations against the people of
Zimbabwe under the rule of Robert Mugabe, they constitute added proof of the
commission by the Mugabe regime of crimes against humanity.
RECOMMENDATIONS
1. Resolve the political impasse
The UN Security Council and the South
African Development Community should call on the Mugabe regime to accept the
result of the 29 March election and allow the MDC to assume its place.
Governments should end their support of Mugabe’s regime, engaging in intensive
diplomacy to assure a democratic political transition. They should maintain and
strengthen targeted bilateral sanctions until Mugabe cedes power and a stable
government is established.
2. Launch an emergency health response
The government of Zimbabwe should
yield control of its health services, water supply, sanitation, disease
surveillance, Ministry of Health operations, and other public health functions
to a United Nations-designated agency or consortium. Such a mechanism would be
equivalent to putting the health system into a receivership pursuant to the
existence of a circumstance that meets the criteria for the Responsibility to
Protect. If the government of Zimbabwe refuses to yield such control, the U.N.
Security Council, acting pursuant to its authority under Article 39 of the
Charter, should enact a resolution compelling the Government of Zimbabwe to do
so.
3. Refer the situation in Zimbabwe to the International Criminal Court for
crimes against humanity The U.N. Security Council, acting pursuant to its
authority under Article
41 of the U.N. Charter, should enact a resolution
referring the crisis in Zimbabwe to the International Criminal Court for
investigation and to begin the process of compiling documentary and other
evidence that would support the charge of crimes against humanity.
4. Convene an emergency summit on HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and other infectious
diseases Donor governments and the Global Fund should consider this crisis as a
first test-case of the collapse of a health system in a country that is a
recipient of emergency AIDS and TB prevention and treatment programs. The Obama
Administration, together with the Global Fund and other donors, should convene
an emergency summit to coordinate action to address the current acute shortfalls
in AIDS and Tuberculosis treatment and care.
5. Prevent further nutritional deterioration and ensure household food
security To prevent further deterioration of nutritional status, especially
among the most vulnerable (young children, mothers, HIV/AIDS, and TB sufferers),
the international community needs urgently to fully fund the 2009 Consolidated
Appeal (CAP) for Zimbabwe of $550 million USD. Importantly, donor governments
must ensure non-interference by the current governing regime in obstructing,
diverting, politicizing, or looting such humanitarian aid. The United States as
well as other donor governments and private voluntary organizations should
increase donations of appropriate foods to the responsible multilateral
agencies, such as WFP, to meet the impending shortfall in the coming three to
six months.
© Physicians for Human Rights http://physiciansforhumanrights.org
© 2008/2009 Physicians for Human Rights Cambridge, Massachusetts All rights
reserved.
The Horror Mugabe Doesn't Want the World to See
What is the secret so horrible that President Robert Mugabe of
Zimbabwe does not want the world to see? Why did he refuse visas for Jimmy
Carter, Kofi Annan and Graca Machel of “The Elders,” a group of eminent statesmen, last fall? Why did
Mugabe’s secret police keep a team of investigators from Physicians for Human
Rights under surveillance in the week before Christmas last year—and try to
arrest them before they could tell their story to the world?
In a report titled HEALTH IN RUINS: A Man-Made Disaster in Zimbabwe,
Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) revealed Mugabe’s dark secret this morning at a press
conference in Johannesburg, South Africa: President Mugabe's regime was
committing crimes against humanity. Desmond Tutu, the retired Anglican
Archbishop of Cape Town and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, said in a statement
that the PHR report: “documents that the people of Zimbabwe are being denied the
most basic of life’s necessities—access to health care, food, clean water, and
even life itself. The world must take action against the Mugabe regime for these
crimes against humanity.”
Excerpts from
HEALTH IN RUINS:
A Man-Made Disaster in
Zimbabwe:
|
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Crimes Against Humanity
…Robert Mugabe [has attempted] to conceal the
appalling situation of his country’s people and to prevent the world from
knowing how his Government’s malignant policies have led to the destruction of
infrastructure, widespread disease, torture, and death.
The Cholera Epidemic is a Result of Human Rights Violations
The Mugabe regime intentionally suppressed initial
reports of the cholera epidemic and has since denied or underplayed its
gravity.
Healthcare Neither Accessible nor Affordable
...The dollarization of the economy since November
2008 has led to an economic apartheid in healthcare access. Since then, only a
tiny elite with substantial foreign currency holdings can be said to have any
real access to healthcare.
Human Rights and Torture
...A political environment marked by partisan
violence, arbitrary arrest, incommunicado detention, torture, and extrajudicial
killings have continued unabated since the March 2008 parliamentary and
presidential elections.
Seizure of Farmland by the Ruling Elite
Under the guise of land redistribution to benefit
landless black Zimbabweans, Mugabe instead awarded many of these once productive
farms to government ministers.... The land seizure led to sharp falls in
agricultural production...and increased food insecurity for millions.
The Collapse of Democracy, the Economy and Health Care
The health crisis in Zimbabwe is a direct outcome of
the violation of a number of human rights, including the right to participate in
government and in free elections and the right to a standard of living adequate
for one’s health and well being, including food, medical care, and necessary
social services.
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PHR found that the Mugabe government has withheld food aid, seed, and
fertilizer to rural provinces in order to starve political opponents; that the
regime nationalized and then withheld routine support for municipal water and
sewer systems from cities that elected political opponents; that the health care
infrastructure and the economy itself is nearing utter collapse; corruption is
the rule not the exception; and that the regime brutally silences critics to
cover its crimes, profound corruption and incompetence. (See report here)
“While we were there,” Frank Donaghue, CEO of Physicians for Human Rights
told Religion Dispatches, “human rights activists were imprisoned and
tortured.”
“People think that the most compelling problem is cholera,” he said (and
indeed, the cholera outbreak has been widely reported). But, adds Donaghue, it
is also a symptom of more profound underlying problems. “The issue is the
collapse of the government, the economy, and the health system” he said. “Human
waste is running down the streets. Kids are playing in it. The sewage system is
in such bad repair that you get sewage in tap water.” PHR has issued the video,
below, depicting how the disaster even affects the nation’s capital city: “The
Marimba River which feeds Lake Chivero, Harare’s main water supply, is so filled
with [human] excrement that plant growth covers its
surface.”
Robert
Mugabe should face trial say US doctors
http://www.telegraph.co.uk
US doctors who inspected Zimbabwe's
health care facilities say Robert Mugabe
should be tried for crimes against
humanity.
Last Updated: 6:05PM GMT 13 Jan 2009
The recommendation
came in a damning report published after the group's
fact-finding mission to
Zimbabwe last month.
They were forced to flee after interviewing 92
health workers, patients,
nurses and members of the public, and being
accused by the government of
being American spies.
The doctors,
members of a group called Physicians for Human Rights, also
concluded that
the United Nations should take over the country's health
system.
"The
UN Security Council ... should enact a resolution referring the crisis
to
the International Criminal Court for investigation and to begin the
process
of compiling documentary and other evidence that would support the
charge of
crimes against humanity," said Dr Frank Donaghue, chief executive
officer of
the group.
"There are no public hospitals open, none, all the clinics are
closed, there
is no health care for pregnant women and the cholera
statistics are
under-declared.
"The Mugabe regime intentionally
suppressed the initial reports of the
cholera epidemic and has since denied
or underplayed its gravity ... has
intentionally suppressed information
regarding increasing malnutrition,
according to the report.
The
report said that a pay-slip shown to them by government-employed doctor
in
Harare showed that in November she had earned the equivalent of 28
pence.
A nurse told the visiting doctors: "Malnutrition is very
political. We are
not supposed to have hunger in Zimbabwe. So even though we
do see it, we
cannot report it."
The report was endorsed by Mary
Robinson, the former UN High Commissioner
for Human Rights; Judge Richard
Goldstone, the former UN Chief Prosecutor at
the International Criminal
Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda;
and Desmond Tutu, the
Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town.
They said in a preface to the report:
"These findings add to the growing
evidence that Robert Mugabe and his
regime may well be guilty of crimes
against humanity."
Dr David
Sanders, a former lecturer at Zimbabwe's medical school, which has
now shut
down, said: "The statistics are staggering. In the last 15 years,
the life
expectancy has dropped from 62 years to 36 years of age."
Zimbabweans
detail abduction spree
http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0114/p06s01-woaf.html
Fresh details of recent abductions, beatings, and
forced confessions of
Zimbabwe's opposition leaders and civic activists
emerged Tuesday during a
press conference.
By Scott Baldauf | Staff
writer of The Christian Science Monitor
from the January 14, 2009
edition
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - The men came for Bothwell
Pasipamire just after
midnight on Dec. 13, armed with pistols. With his wife
screaming, they
pushed him into a brand-new white Toyota pickup truck, and
took the young
newly elected councillor of a small rural town on what he
thought would be
the last drive of his life.
For the next three days,
Mr. Pasipamire would be beaten, tortured, and
forced on camera to beat a
mutinous Zimbabwe army soldier, and then confess
to various crimes against
President Robert Mugabe's government, until he was
finally allowed to escape
by sympathetic intelligence officers.
His story - told to reporters from
the safety of Johannesburg, South Africa,
as civic activists and fellow
members of the opposition Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) face trial
for treason this week in his native
Zimbabwe - speaks volumes about the
brutal lengths to which Mr. Mugabe's
ZANU-PF party is willing to go to stay
in power, nine months after losing
national elections to the
MDC.
"The ZANU-PF, they are trying to cause fear within the people of
Zimbabwe,"
says Mr. Pasipamire, speaking with the Monitor at a Johannesburg
hotel. "For
example, I am a town councillor. People will say, 'If a
councillor is
abducted, eh! What about myself?' "
Three months after
agreeing to share power with the MDC in a coalition
government, Mugabe
continues to rule his impoverished and famished country
with an iron
fist.
While neighboring African nations urge Zimbabwe's contending
parties to set
their differences aside, and are putting extra pressure on
MDC leaders to
reach a deal, any deal, Mugabe's security agencies are
sweeping the country,
arresting, beating, and then charging rivals with
crimes punishable by
death. In such an environment, experts say, peaceful
negotiation is nearly
impossible.
"This diminishes the prospect of a
functional coalition government," says
Ozias Tungwarara, an expert on
Zimbabwe for the Open Society Institute in
Johannesburg. "ZANU-PF has never
been serious about reforming the political
environment. Their only interest
is holding on to political power at all
costs."
Mugabe's campaign of
terror - coming at a time of complete economic
collapse, growing famine, and
a cholera epidemic as water and sanitation
systems break down - began almost
as soon as he agreed to a power-sharing
deal with the MDC on Sept.
15.
The MDC, whose president, Morgan Tsvangirai, defeated Mugabe in the
first
round of elections on March 29, reports that some 40 of its members
have
disappeared from their homes since Oct. 25. Eleven of these abductees,
like
those abducted during the presidential campaign earlier this year, have
never surfaced and are thought to be now dead.
The MDC's numbers are
slightly higher than those kept by rights groups, such
as the Harare-based
Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights. According to that
organization, eight
non-MDC activists have been detained along with Jestina
Mukoko, the founder
of the Zimbabwe Peace Project; seven MDC activists soon
joined them at
Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison and Chikurubi Female
Prison.
"Behind the political crisis and health emergency, there is a
worsening
human rights crisis in Zimbabwe, with the most recent development
being this
unprecedented spate of abductions of human rights defenders,"
said Irene
Khan, secretary general of Amnesty International's branch in
South Africa.
"This shows the audacity of a regime that is desperate to stay
in power..
The only way out of this problem is through unified pressure from
outside,
in particular of African leaders."
While Zimbabwe police
first denied having MDC members and civic activists
like Ms. Mukoko in
custody, they later admitted the activists were under
arrest, and charged
them with recruiting young men to train in guerrilla
warfare and sabotage in
alleged training camps in neighboring Botswana.
Activists under trial have
testified that they were tortured, like
Pasipamire, into signing false
confessions.
Mukoko, in her sworn court testimony, and Pasipamire, in his
recorded
statement before legal counsel, have both alleged that officers of
Zimbabwe's feared Central Intelligence Organization beat them on the feet
with heavy rubber cords.
In Pasipamire's case, a CIO warrant officer
named Mabhunu also allegedly
sexually assaulted him, and tried to force him
to kill a mutinous Zimbabwe
army soldier with a crowbar, in front of a TV
camera.
"I don't want you to suffer, but we do need your help,"
Pasipamire recalls
Mabhunu telling him during an interrogation. "All I want
you to do is to
kill one of the soldiers we have here at the camp. The
soldiers have already
been beaten; they won't fight with you. But I need you
to hit one of them on
the head with this and kill him. Can you do that for
me?"
"I have never killed anyone in my life. I can't do that," Pasipamire
recalls
saying.
"OK, can you pretend to do it?" Mabhunu allegedly
replied.
The next morning, Pasipamire and other men were "made to
pretend" to beat a
young soldier in camouflage uniform, while a TV camera
filmed them. He then
confessed on TV to having beaten soldiers and murdered
at least one, on the
order or Mr. Tsvangirai.
Afterward, he recalls,
"one of the officials patted me on the shoulder and
said, 'Don't worry if it
is true or not. It's what we need, nothing more.' "
After four days,
Pasipamire escaped from the torture camp, assisted by
sympathetic members of
the CIO.
"There are some inside ZANU-PF and CIO who do not believe in
what they are
doing," he says, adding that he cannot say more without
endangering those
who remain in Zimbabwe.
Pasipamire also thinks that
Mugabe's tactics will not hold down Zimbabweans
forever. "People see if you
don't do anything, then there [will be] no
change," he says. "But if you
push, then things will change. I can't say
when, but someday, I'm sure
everything is going to be OK in Zimbabwe."
How the "evidence" was
manufactured
From ZWNEWS, 13 January
An MDC councillor from Kadoma who was kidnapped a week
after Jestina
Mukoko - and held at the same torture camp near Goromonzi -
has escaped and
given the first full account of government strategy behind
the current wave
of abductions. Mr Bornwell Pasipamire was snatched from his
home at Kadoma
on Saturday 13 December and driven to a camp at Goromonzi
where he was
interrorgated by a man calling himself Army Warrant Officer
Mabhunu. "They
were not after information, just to make me so scared by use
of torture and
beatings that I would follow their orders," Pasipamire told
ZWNEWS shortly
before he was due to address a press conference in
Johannesburg on Tuesday
morning. "The strategy worked. They abused me and I
was not allowed to sleep
for three days because they kept hosing me down
with cold water. Even the
blanket in my cell was wet." On the second day,
Pasipamire and others were
made to act out the beating of a uniformed
soldier, one of several arrested
during the Christmas riots in Harare. "The
young soldier looked more scared
than me which is really saying something.
We had to pretend to beat and kick
him while he rolled on the ground, and
all the time ZBC TV cameras filmed
us," he said.
Pasipamire, who has
O-level English and speaks the language fluently, was
later separated from
the others and handed a written text with more than 20
questions and
answers. "I was given some time to learn the answers, then the
TV crew
appeared again along with a smartly dressed men who looked like a
news
presenter. And for hours we ran through the script with him asking me
the
questions and me repeating the answers like a parrot. If I got one wrong
they would stop the camera and make me do it again." During the "interview",
Pasipamire was made to confess that he had been trained as a guerrilla in
Botswana, returned to Zimbabwe with orders to overthrow the government and
he had been handed US$1000 personally by Morgan Tsvangirai who told him that
the money came from the British and Americans via their ambassadors in
Harare. "I had never been to Botswana and the whole thing was a list of
lies, but I and others who were good at English had to go through this
rubbish, or face being tortured and beaten all over again," he said. There
was also a women's section at the camp where Pasipamire says he believes
human-rights activist Jestina Mukuku may have been held. On his release,
Pasipamire made a detailed statement to legal counsel.
Cholera
Death Toll In Zimbabwe Rises To 2,024, Says UN
Agency
http://www.nasdaq.com
(RTTNews) - The death toll in the ongoing cholera
outbreak in Zimbabwe has
crossed 2,000 since it began in August, said the
World Health Organization
(WHO) on Tuesday.
The WHO said that the
cholera epidemic has claimed 2,024 lives out of the
39,806 suspected cases
reported in Zimbabwe since August, adding that the
fatality rate from
cholera epidemic in the country stands at 5.1%, much
above the normal 1% in
such massive outbreaks.
Meanwhile, Physicians for Human Rights, a U.S.
based group, called for an
International Criminal Court (ICC) investigation
into the spread of the
cholera epidemic in Zimbabwe, and blamed President
Robert Mugabe's
government for the collapse of the country's health and
sanitation systems,
which indirectly led to the spread of the
epidemic.
"These findings add to the growing evidence that Robert Mugabe
and his
regime may well be guilty of crimes against humanity," said a report
released by the group on Tuesday.
Zimbabwe, which is currently
reeling under a severe economic and political
crisis, is struggling to
control the massive cholera outbreak because of a
shortage of water
purification chemicals, drugs, medical supplies and health
professionals in
the country.
Various health and relief agencies have blamed poor
sanitation and shortage
of safe drinking water for the spreading of the
water-borne disease and have
warned that the outbreak could spread further
if safe water and sanitation
were not provided immediately.
The
ongoing economic and political crisis in Zimbabwe is widely blamed on
President Mugabe's failure to form a unity government involving the
opposition, as per a previously agreed power-sharing deal reached in
September to end the political crisis and to pull back the impoverished
African country from an economic collapse.
Repeated power-sharing
negotiations following the deal had ended deadlocked
with the opposition MDC
accusing President Mugabe's Zanu PF party of
refusing to share important
portfolios with them in the proposed unity
government.
Helping an overwhelmed clinic respond to cholera in Chirundu,
Zimbabwe
Source: United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF)
Date: 09 Jan
2009
By Thomas Myhren
CHIRUNDU, Zimbabwe, 9 January 2009 -
Cholera victims were in agony on the
damp grass outside an overfilled clinic
in Chinrundu, a small community in
the Northwest region of Zimbabwe. The
rural clinic, which only has the
capacity to treat eight patients, has been
overwhelmed by the cholera
emergency; its staff has already witnessed 185
cases and 16 deaths.
These figures are a testimony to the difficult
circumstances found by UNICEF
Zimbabwe Water, Sanitation and Hygiene
Specialist Boniface Nzara when his
team arrived at the site.
Only
three courageous nurses and a handful of volunteers were on hand to
operate
the clinic.
"When we arrived at the clinic we were met by a frightening
sight. People
with cholera were just lying outside the clinic with very
little assistance"
said Mr. Nzara. "The hygiene situation inside was
literally a cholera
breeding ground."
Mr. Nzara added that there were
very few latrines, and that all patients
were being treated side by side,
posing a major risk for those who had been
admitted for illnesses other than
cholera. "The clinic was infested with
flies and had a terrible smell. It
was a struggle and inconvenience for the
understaffed nurses to move around
to assist patients," he recalled.
Large and aggressive
outbreak
The current cholera outbreak here is, by far, the largest and
most
aggressive one in the country's recent history. A major contributor to
the
emergency is the breakdown of health systems, coupled with soaring
inflation, which has weakened Zimbabwe's ability to provide basic social
services. Health workers are severely affected by the economic climate, as
their monthly salaries do not cover the cost of transportation to
work.
Last month, with supplies running short, clinic representatives
made the
journey to the UNICEF office in Harare, seeking urgent assistance.
Within 24
hours, the first truck carrying assistance was deployed.
In
response, said Mr. Nzara, the UNICEF team "travelled for nearly five
hours
to reach the clinic, which is close to the Zambian border. We brought
a
cholera kit, which contains everything a clinic needs to provide
treatment."
Cholera kits arrive
Each cholera kit includes two
treatment tents large enough to house 50
patients, beds and pit latrine
equipment, as well as IV fluids and oral
rehydration salts. Decontaminating
foot baths and handwashing points were
set up in strategic areas as
precautionary measures.
UNICEF also supplied a 5,000-litre water tank and
500,000 water-purification
tablets to secure safe drinking water in the
short term.
"We had to do on-the-job training on hygiene education while
setting up the
centre. We could not waste any time," said Mr. Nzara.
"Children often see
water puddles and want to play in them, or put their
fingers in their mouth
without washing them with soap first. We have raised
awareness that these
actions could seriously harm the child."
New
clinic set up
Due to the lack of personnel, the team had to rely on
community members to
assist in setting up the new facilities.
"Since
there was limited manpower, the team and I had to wear two hats -
both as
coordinators and construction workers," said Mr. Nzara. "We spent
two days
setting up the Cholera Treatment Clinic to make it function and
have all the
requirements such a clinic should have. It was a hectic job,
but seeing the
relief on the faces of both patients and nurses provided all
the motivation
we needed."
The new clinic is providing tangible hope for Chinrundu and
its surrounding
communities. Mr. Nzara said UNICEF expected an increase in
admissions at the
clinic and a decrease in fatality rates, as patients will
no longer be
prematurely sent home to make room for incoming cholera
cases.
"Our colleagues are doing a remarkable job, working around the
clock to
provide assistance in a very difficult operating environment," said
UNICEF
Acting Representative in Zimbabwe Roeland Monasch. "We are further
scaling
up our efforts with increased supplies and will continue to battle
cholera
as long as it takes."
Abducted
child released from Chikurubi
http://www.thezimbabwetimes.com/?p=9826
January 13, 2009
By Our
Correspondent
HARARE - Prison authorities on Tuesday released from
detention a
two-year-old child who was abducted along with his mother three
months ago.
Nigel Mutemagau was abducted by suspected state security
agents last October
along with his mother, Violet Mupfuranhewe.
Since
their appearance in court late in December Nigel had remained with his
mother in Chikurubi Maximum Prison.
Nigel was released late Tuesday
afternoon and handed over to some people who
had visited Mupfuranhewe and
who are now frantically trying to locate his
parents' relatives so that they
can hand him over to them.
Mupfuranhewe will, however, remain in
detention.
The release of Nigel follows last month's order by High Court
Judge Justice
Yunus Omerjee ordering the release of the child, as well as
various MDC
members and human rights activists who were abducted from
various locations
over the past three months
They include former
newscaster Jestina Mukoko who was abducted from her home
in the town of
Norton, 40 kilometres west of Harare.
Although Omerjee ruled that Mukoko,
the director of the Zimbabwe Peace
Project, and eight MDC members must be
released to a private hospital for
medical examination after alleged
torture, the state has defied the ruling.
Meanwhile, High Court Judge
Alphas Chitakunye will on Wednesday hear and
make a ruling on an urgent
chamber application in which the Zimbabwe Lawyers
for Human Rights (ZLHR) is
seeking the immediate production and release of
twelve missing Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) members.
ZLHR is seeking an order compelling
State Security Minister Didymus Mutasa,
Commissioner-General of Police
Augustine Chihuri, the Commissioner of
Prisons Paradzai Zimondi, Johannes
Tomana, the Attorney-General, and their
agents to produce and release the
remaining twelve missing abductees before
the High Court. The lawyers are
also seeking an investigation and
prosecution of their abductors.
The
twelve missing MDC members are Lloyd Tarumbwa, Gwenzi Kahiya, Lovemore
Machokoto, Charles Muza, Ephraim Mabeka, Edmore Vangirai, Peter Munyanyi,
Bothwell Pasipamire, Graham Matewa, Fanny Tembo, Larry Gaka and Terry
Musona.
They were abducted in the period between October and December
last year in
various areas including Zvimba and Kadoma in Mashonaland West
Province,
Makoni in Manicaland Province, Gutu in Masvingo Province and
Gokwe.
Some of the MDC members abducted in October and surrendered into
police
custody in December said they saw some of the twelve missing persons
during
their detention.
UK
immigration detain prominent Zimbabwean activist
http://www.swradioafrica.com
By Lance Guma
13 January
2009
British immigration officials on Monday detained prominent
Zimbabwean
activist Luka Phiri at the Colnbrook Immigration Removal Centre
in London,
and plan to deport him to Malawi on Thursday. Phiri, a well-known
activist
who has participated in countless demonstrations, sought asylum in
the UK
after entering the country on a Malawian passport in 2003. He says he
acquired the Malawian passport to avoid the tight visa restrictions put in
place for Zimbabweans wishing to travel to the UK. But despite a temporary
ban on the deportation of unsuccessful Zimbabwean asylum seekers, the UK
Home Office is using the technicality that Phiri is a Malawian citizen,
based on his passport of entry.
The case has enraged many Zimbabwean
activists who accused the British
government of putting at risk a genuine
activist who has campaigned
vigorously against Mugabe's regime. Phiri spoke
to Newsreel from his
detention room Tuesday and says he provided the UK Home
Office with evidence
of his Zimbabwean nationality. Some of the documents
include his Zimbabwean
metal ID, long birth certificate, divorce papers,
custody papers,
educational certificates from age 7 to 26 and even his old
and new
Zimbabwean passports. He has also provided two letters from both the
MDC in
Zimbabwe and the UK, confirming his membership of the party. All in
all
Phiri says he provided close to 50 documents that prove his
nationality.
Phiri says all the letters he has received from the UK Home
Office regarding
his case refer to him as a Zimbabwean. He also says his UK
driving licence
states clearly that he is a Zimbabwean. It's only for
purposes of
deportation that he is being referred to as a Malawian. Phiri,
who was
previously a close aide of now MDC Vice President Thokozani Khupe,
is set to
be deported Thursday on a Kenya Airlines flight KQ101 from
Heathrow Airport
at 7pm. There was a flurry of activity Monday and Tuesday
as different
organizations and activists campaigned for his release,
including pleas for
intervention being sent to his East Ham MP Stephen
Timms, from the UK Labour
Party.
This is now the second time Phiri
has faced the prospect of deportation. In
2006 he spent nearly 12 weeks in
detention at the Dover Removal Centre,
before being moved to Campsfield in
Oxford. The Zimbabwe Association
pressure group for which he now works as a
volunteer, proved instrumental in
blocking his deportation then. Almost 3
years later the same organization
has to go through the same process, again
coordinating Phiri's judicial
review appeal via his lawyers. No court action
is expected until late on
Wednesday, a day before the actual
deportation.
The planned deportation of Phiri is in stark contrast to the
treatment
afforded to former Labour and Social Welfare Minister Florence
Chitauro, who
is now living in London and travels to and from Zimbabwe
without any
hindrance. As Labour Minister she helped brutally suppress
strikes against
workers in the country. She lives in a plush town house in
West London with
husband James Chitauro, himself a former senior civil
servant in Mugabe's
regime.
Labour MP Kate Hoey has in the past slammed
the UK border agency for being,
'obsessed with trying to meet targets on
asylum seekers and keeping out any
Zimbabwean who they think might not
return home. But they need to spend more
time checking out some of the ZANU
PF apparatchiks who have been coming in
and out for years and who are
personally responsible for what is happening
in Zimbabwe now.'
Zimbabweans
protest outside Downing Street
http://www.politics.co.uk
Tuesday, 13, Jan 2009 05:27
By
politics.co.uk staff
A demonstration by Zimbabweans looking for the right
to work in the UK has
taken place outside Downing Street.
Organisers
said the event was timed to mark six months since prime minister
Gordon
Brown said he would look into the situation of 11,000 destitute
Zimbabweans
living in the UK who can not return home and are not allowed to
work or
access benefits.
The demonstration, organised by Citizens for Sanctuary,
demanded permission
to work, pay taxes and gain the skills they need to
"help rebuild Zimbabwe".
Several hundred Zimbabweans gathered outside
Downing Street in a bid to
remind Mr Brown of when he declared he would look
at "what we can do to
support Zimbabweans in that situation and we will
report back to the House
[of Commons] in due course".
A dossier was
delivered containing several hundred CVs from Zimbabweans
seeking employment
in the UK.
Jonathan Cox, from the Citizens for Sanctuary campaign,
appealed to Mr Brown
to take action and help.
"It has been half a
year since the prime minister promised to look at what
could be done for
Zimbabweans," he said.
"This demonstration will remind Mr Brown that
11,000 destitute Zimbabweans
are waiting for him to keep his word. Our
government has been a world leader
in criticising Mugabe while leaving many
of those who escaped that horrific
regime to languish here without
hope.
"We must prepare Zimbabweans who came to Britain in search of
sanctuary with
the skills and experience that they will need to forge a
brighter future for
their country once democracy and stability are
restored."
Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman,
added: "Ministers
cannot complain about [president] Mugabe on the one hand,
yet stand idly by
while Zimbabweans are suffering here in the UK. Give
Zimbabweans the right
to work."
In July last year 2,000 Zimbabweans
rallied in Parliament Square calling for
permission to work and pay taxes,
at a demonstration addressed by John
Sentamu, the Archbishop of York, and
other civil society leaders.
The Foreign Office is urging the government
to adopt a more liberal policy
towards Zimbabweans in the UK, because it
gives them moral leverage when
dealing with Mugabe's regime. That opinion is
not shared by the Home Office,
who take a harder line.
Thomas Sibanda, "It's a wonder people
haven't started destroying banks and looting them"
Photo:
IRIN  |
| Cash
shortage - Zimbabweans queue to access their accounts as banks run out of
money | HARARE, 13 January 2009 (IRIN) - In most
countries, if you are a service-orientated kind of person, being a bank teller
is a pretty good job, but not in Zimbabwe. Banking staff deal daily with sullen
or irate customers wanting to get their hands on their savings, but who have
been limited by law to a ceiling on withdrawals that does not cover the cost of
a loaf of bread.
Teller Thomas Sibanda* spoke to IRIN about being on a
frontline of the country's economic crisis, in which the inflation rate is
officially in the hundreds of millions of percent, and one US dollar now costs
around 20 billion Zimbabwean dollars.
"It used to be a pleasure dealing
with clients coming to withdraw their money or carry out other transactions, but
that is no longer the case. The banking system has steadily been going to the
dogs, and as a bank teller I feel like an undertaker at a funeral.
"Granted, the queues are not as long as they used to be following the
decision by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe [RBZ] to force clients to withdraw only
a maximum of Z$10 billion [US$50 cents] per month if they are withdrawing their
salaries [a restriction that was recently lifted].
"Most of the people
who come to the banks these days are those [who do not have payslips] and can
only withdraw Z$5 billion a week [US$25 cents – a restriction that remains in
force].
"What does a person do with that small amount of money when a
single trip into town is now costing a US dollar or its equivalent in Zimbabwean
dollars? Where does the RBZ think the people are getting the rest of the money?
"When queues were so long it was such a big challenge for us. At one
time a customer jumped into my cubicle and threatened to beat me up. The police
and internal security were called, but the client refused to leave unless he was
given his money, and even though the bank manager had given an order that we
should not disburse more money, the cash was raised to give to the irate
customer.
"That kind of anger among clients is understandable. Imagine
that a person comes into town and joins a bank queue as early as 4 a.m., only to
be told at the close of business that he can't withdraw his money [because of
the cash shortage], even though he or she knows that his account has sufficient
funds.
"Back at home his family does not have a single cent to buy bread
or other basic necessities. The customer doesn't even have the money to travel
back home. What do you expect him or her to do? It's a wonder people haven't
started destroying banks and looting them.
"It is immoral and illegal,
but I'm aware there are many bank officials who have been taking advantage of
the cash crisis to enrich themselves. They ask clients for huge kickbacks, or
use the client's savings to buy foreign currency, which they pocket without the
knowledge or consent of the customers.
"That practice, however, seems to
have gone down after a number of the bank officials, some of them very senior,
were arrested."
* Not his real name
[ENDS]
|
![[Zimbabwe]](http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/OB-CY242_zimbab_E_20090113095701.jpg)
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