Death never far away, say released convicts

From The Zimbabwean

Written by TAKESURE BIZURE
Monday, 14 September 2009 00:00
HARARE – Prison inmates released through a presidential amnesty on
Friday say they are lucky to survive their stay in the country’s jails,
described by Amnesty International in July this year as deplorable and unfit
for humans. Close to 1,000 prisoners are said to have died of hunger and
disease in Zimbabwe’s jails between January and June this year. Emaciated,
starving and sick – prisoners released early from Zimbabwe’s overcrowded,
disease-infested jails say they were lucky to survive. This picture comes
from film footage shot secretly in one of the country’s prisons for an SABC
documentary.
Released inmates interviewed by The Zimbabwean said they were thankful
to god for sparing them from the hunger and disease that have plagued the
country’s jails in the past years.
“Prison life was so tough. There was lots of disease and persistent
hunger. We were continually subjected to plain beans, boiled cabbages and
sometimes porridge,” said 25-year-old Chazika Chazika, a burglary convict
who was released from Harare central prison after completing 10 months of a
20-month sentence. An international outcry over rights abuses by President
Robert Mugabe’s government pressured the government into the early release
of 2,500 convicts under a presidential pardon.
Zimbabwe’s judge president Rita Makarau had said sentencing people to
jail terms under the current situation was tantamount to passing death
sentences on them. Film footage, shot secretly in the prisons, alerted the
world to the dire conditions faced by the starving prisoners, and
humanitarian groups sent in supplies of water, food, clothing and medicines.
Reports say the rate of deaths has since dropped from three to two per
week. Former prisoner Costa Vinyu (19) said he would rather brave poverty in
the outside world than steal and go back to the life he had experienced
during the 10 months of his incarceration. “Life was so unbearable inside.
Our prisons are not places one should go back to. Diseases were rampant and
hunger was persistent,” he said. “I thank god I survived the cholera
outbreak. Several of my friends died through the disease. Our cells were
always overcrowded. “Our diet only changed on July 12 this year, when the
Red Cross came in to donate foodstuffs. Before that, our meal times were
irregular.”
Tawanda Murodzi, another ex-inmate released after serving two years of
a five-year sentence, said inmates were constantly subjected to long periods
of starvation. “We could spend the whole day without eating anything,” he
said. “Most of the time we would go up to 9pm without taking any meal. We
would then each be given a cup of boiled cabbage. The next morning we would
drink a lot of water to stave off hunger. “We experienced diseases such as
pellagra. We saw the whole cholera havoc wreck our jails. Colleagues died in
our midst. It was a question of when the disease would catch up with us,”
said Murodzi. Among those freed were women prisoners, those in open prisons
and life inmates who had served 20 or more years. The amnesty excluded
prisoners jailed for serious crimes, including murder, rape and vehicle
hijacking.