Opinion / Columnist
Zimbabwe yet to taste independence
04 Jan 2021 at 07:35hrs | Views
THE Zanu-PF-led government has continued to violate human rights. Its crackdown on human rights and opposition activists, including the continued eviction of people from urban and rural settlements using State resources and agents such as the Zimbabwe Republic Police is testimony to this.
Budiriro residents whose houses were demolished are the latest victims. Zimbabwe should not be considered independent for the following reasons:
- Although the country is supposed to be governed by the Constitution, President Emmerson Mnangagwa's regime's intolerant and authoritarian rule does not adhere to the tenets of the supreme law. An autocratic regime does not guarantee prosperity, poverty reduction and observance of human rights.
- The media, civic groups, human rights activists and ordinary people are not allowed to criticise the government and if they do they are labelled "sellouts" and brutalised as a consequence.
- There are no free and fair elections, freedoms of speech and expression are limited and violence by State security agents is sanctioned by the government on dissenting voices.
- Elections are won by the ruling Zanu-PF party by the use of unfair means as witnessed in 2018.
- Civic organisation meetings and demonstrations are declared illegal on the pretext of observing the COVID-19-induced lockdown regulations.
- Politically-motivated violence such as murders and disappearances, intimidation, harassment of opposition supporters and intolerance of dissent are endemic during the run-up to elections.
In light of this, it is clear that Zimbabwe does not have a universally acceptable democratic framework and Zimbabweans have had no experience of democracy during and after white minority rule.
Budiriro residents whose houses were demolished are the latest victims. Zimbabwe should not be considered independent for the following reasons:
- Although the country is supposed to be governed by the Constitution, President Emmerson Mnangagwa's regime's intolerant and authoritarian rule does not adhere to the tenets of the supreme law. An autocratic regime does not guarantee prosperity, poverty reduction and observance of human rights.
- The media, civic groups, human rights activists and ordinary people are not allowed to criticise the government and if they do they are labelled "sellouts" and brutalised as a consequence.
- Elections are won by the ruling Zanu-PF party by the use of unfair means as witnessed in 2018.
- Civic organisation meetings and demonstrations are declared illegal on the pretext of observing the COVID-19-induced lockdown regulations.
- Politically-motivated violence such as murders and disappearances, intimidation, harassment of opposition supporters and intolerance of dissent are endemic during the run-up to elections.
In light of this, it is clear that Zimbabwe does not have a universally acceptable democratic framework and Zimbabweans have had no experience of democracy during and after white minority rule.
Source - newsday
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