The government of the much-beleaguered country of Zimbabwe has been in a power-sharing agreement between the two opposing factions of Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party and Tsvangirai’s MDC party. People hoped that such a much-awaited turn of events not too long ago will mean that the country would be able to surmount its massive economic woes, health crisis, and social repression. They hoped too much.
Human rights abuses and repression persist to be prevalent even under the new power-sharing government. The political arrangement has not made concrete progress in political and social reform. Human Rights Watch claims that human rights abuses continue in the country. There is a perceived lack of political will from those in power, even if this time shared between erstwhile overtly warring political parties.
According to Georgette Gagnon, Africa director at Human Rights Watch, “The transitional power-sharing government is a sham. From a human rights perspective, nothing has changed for the better. Robert Mugabe and ZANU-PF are still fully in control.” “The power-sharing government experiment is not working. Without political stability and rights reforms, any progress on economic recovery won’t last,” Gagnon adds.
Human Rights Watch in Zimbabwe discloses findings that Mugabe’s party ZANU-PF ‘continues to engage in political violence against perceived opponents.’ Security forces, war veterans, even volunteer youth continue to be ‘instruments of repression.’ Commercial farms are still invaded and violated by the military. Elements that oppose the ruling party such as journalists are toppled via intimidation and arrest. Mugabe’s people continue to hoard revenues from the country’s diamond trade.
The tragedy of Zimbabwe is that it dares to call itself a democracy. The price to pay is the looming possibility of a civil war.
Photo Courtesy AP
