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Monthly Monitor - October
Peace Project (ZPP)
November 16, 2012
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As the country's
major political parties gear up in preparing for another electoral
cycle, political tensions are slowly rising across the country with
444 cases recorded in October up from the 365 incidents witnessed
during the month of September.
is on the rise as political parties move to organise their supporters
and begin to engage voters in preparation
for the constitutional referendum and next year's anticipated
general elections. One of the major strategies being used by the
political parties are door-to-door campaigns as a result of police
banning political rallies in most of the country's provinces.
of organized political terror are being relived in most parts of
the country with an increase in the deployment and visibility of
state security agents and soldiers particularly in Manicaland and
Bulawayo provinces where they were engaged in human rights abuses
- two cases of torture were recorded during the period under review
and CIO agents were cited as perpetrators. The torture occurred
during police detention.
The COPAC Second
All Stakeholders' Conference was the highlight of political
events of October 2012. While the actual conference was staged in
a peaceful atmosphere with the keynote speaker- President Robert
Mugabe making impassioned pleas for peace and political tolerance
- the build-up to the conference and the accreditation process was
marred by political intolerance, discrimination and outright intimidation
with rural opposition supporters being denied access to accreditation
centres or chased away with threats of violence emanating from Zanu
PF supporters. The citizenship and Lands clusters were marred by
hate speech and the latter degenerated into chaos as delegates exchanged
Cases of politically-motivated
violence and discrimination experienced an upsurge and were concentrated
more in Manicaland and Masvingo provinces - two provinces that were
previously dominated by Zanu PF before March 2008 harmonised
trend that was confirmed by reports from the two provinces is the
simultaneous politicization and empowerment of the institution of
traditional leadership. Headmen and Chiefs have overnight become
a law unto themselves assuming powers and appropriating functions
beyond their constitutional mandate with the blessing of Zanu PF
aligned state officials and the police.
The food situation
continued to deteriorate in the provinces of Masvingo, Bulawayo,
Matabeleland North and South being the worst affected. Over the
past three months, the ZPP has witnessed a nationwide trend where
Zanu PF officials and traditional leaders aligned to the party are
abusing their positions to deny deserving villagers access to government
supported and donor funded food relief on political grounds.
People who fail
to attend Zanu PF meetings are deliberately omitted as punishment
and a campaign strategy.
of politically motivated violations during the month of October
since 2008 has shown that the number of violations have always been
subdued. The highest number of violations were recorded in October
2008 with 1 106 incidents. The violations have been on a downward
trend as the political parties began to work together in the inclusive
government whose term of office is about to expire.
There were 1
058 incidents recorded in October 2009 and continued to decrease
in 2010 with 896 having been recorded. In 2011, the country witnessed
605 cases during the month of October with incidents of harassment
and intimidation dominating the violations chart.
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