The Police Commissioner must investigate Bulawayo Police Officers for overzealousness
ONE HUNDRED and one members of Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) arrested between 10:30 and 11:30 am on 27 June Wednesday 2012 were release in batches of 5 from 4:30pm yesterday. The police adopted this release strategy to prevent a further protest being conducted if they released everyone at once. Magodonga Mahlangu was the last to be released at 5:30pm.
During the 6 hours in detention, the 101 activists had to fight for every right to be observed by singing protest songs bringing work in the police station to a stand still for most of the day. When arresting details tried to separate and interrogate some of them hoping to release others and remain with a token amount to formally charge. They refused singing a protest song. They sang to demand their lawyer Kossam Ncube get access after he was denied access 3 times.
The police refused to allow the lawyer to oversee the release but agreed that the feeding team stand at his office which is opposite and give food to those being dispersed. This went on smoothly for the first 30 minutes with Riot police officers watching. Then orders were given by another commanding officer for the snatching of the food from the feeding team which included Jennifer Williams. Two officers one plain clothed arrived and snatched two boxes with drinks in and left refusing to explain to the activists. Meanwhile the police officer coordinating the release process was surprised and accompanied by Magodonga Mahlangu went in search of the stolen loot. Confusion prevailed as to who had ordered the looting and Mahlangu refused to accept the food. To cover up the mess, Orders were given to deploy 100 (this figure is not an exaggeration) Riot police to go and arrest Jennifer Williams and the other members of the feeding team.
When Magodonga Mahlangu was released she was followed by plain clothed police officers expecting her to lead them to Jennifer Williams. The two spent the next 3 hours evading unnecessary arrest.
WOZA wish to highlight that even though no charges were made and the activist released without being beaten, their right to peaceful process protected under the current shambolic constitution were effectively denied. To WOZA members this is crime is unforgivable. Additionally the different responses between Riot police in Harare and Bulawayo is cause for concern. We call upon the Police Commissioner to investigate the police command in Bulawayo and discipline them for breaking the law covering the dispersal of peaceful protest.
Police disrupted the protests that were due to start at 11am Wednesday 27 June 2012 by arresting 40 members and by-standers from 10:20am. Magodonga Mahlangu and 2 others were arrested at the statue and 57 members marched with them to the police station bringing the number arrested to 101. With three of each being male, breastfeeding mothers and minors. Two additional protests marched from the statue to the police station to hand themselves in but were turned away by Riot police.
The protest were organised to push for the release of a draft Constitution in a Bulawayo sit-in protest. WOZA are using this occupation style of protest to demand their full right to peaceful protest, freedom of assembly and expression.
Members were singing a popular song sung in the early 1980s. It is sung in isiNdebele language – ‘ilitshe likaNkomo limbomboziwe, liyovulwa ngubani, limbomboziwe? (Loosely translated it means Nkomos ‘stone’ denoting a plan has been hidden or turned upside down, who is going to put it right?)
The choice of location is to expose the disrespect to late Joshua Nkomo, called ‘Father Zimbabwe’. He came from a crop of genuine nationalist and he remains unrecognised. The block of cement ‘statue’ and airport named after him and a brand new unopened hospital are caught up in centralised power struggles – not one of them finished. Devolution in the new constitution would mean we can recognise our own heroes in our own way as the sit-in attempts to do. WOZA also wanted to focus on him. He was the kind of unique politician who could develop clear ideology with people at heart. The current batch of politicians seem empty minded and recycle Zanu PF political cultures. In the end Nkomo put peoples’ welfare before his political ambition and surrendered his party ZAPU to Zanu violence. A mistake that can never be repeated again as people must decide their own destiny and refuse to be silenced by violence.