An outrageous and extremely provocative campaign that shines a spotlight on the Zanu PF clique who are looting Zimbabwe’s national assets has been launched in Johannesburg. The campaign titled “Red Card ZIMafia” has a football theme in line with the World Cup sporting event currently taking place in South Africa.

Paradzai Zimondi is featured in the team lineup as the left back – a defensive position in the game of football. This relates to his current role as head of Zimbabwe’s Prison service where his complete lack of humanity, not to mention management skills, saw many prisoners starve to death making every jail sentence a death sentence. At the same time as an inner member of the Joint Operations Command (JOC) he has enriched himself beyond measure.

Here is his complete CV from the ZIMafia website:

Number: 3
Position: Left Back – Major General (Ret.) – Head of the Zimbabwe Prison Service
Career Highlights:

• Sent his officers to help forced army and police voting for Mugabe in polls
• Forces prison personnel to support Mugabe
• Uses slave labour from the prisons on his stolen farms
• Prisons budgets ‘insufficient’ to clothe or feed prisoners
• Lack of prison clothing mean some inmates go naked
• Lets prisoners starve to death or die of illness
• Buries deceased prisoners in unmarked graves
• Prison conditions among the worst in Africa, no medics, no cleaning
• Encourages cruelty and abuses by officers e.g. cold water hosing of prisoners during winter nights
• Ignores human rights groups reports on prison conditions

The team coach is Robert Mugabe and the rest of the team comprise: Patrick Chinamasa, Obert Mpofu, Emmerson Mnangagwa, Gideon Gono, Perence Shiri, Constantine Chiwenga, Johannes Tomana, Happyton Bonyongwe, Augustine Chihuri and Phillip Sibanda.

Some names may appear unfamiliar but they are all members of the JOC and have played an active part in robbing Zimbabweans of their freedom and rights. They have also bankrupted Zimbabwe, leaving a legacy of debt that will take generations to repay, while amassing large personal fortunes.

The campaign takes the form of a soccer team, Zimbabwe’s Worst Eleven, who are traveling around Johannesburg in the “Bling Bus” which is embellished with bars of gold and diamonds. The “Team” perform street theatre attracting crowds wherever they go and are handing out leaflets, t-shirts and other campaign material.

Find out more about ZIMafia and meet the team: www.zimafia.com/meet-the-team/

Show your support by linking to the ZIMafia Facebook page which is here: www.facebook.com/pages/ZIMafia/120044424705924?v=wall

April 21 2010, 6:40:00
The SABC’s investigative news programme, Special Assignment, has won the coveted Amnesty International Award for Human Rights. It was presented at the Commonwealth Broadcasters’ Association (CBA) Awards in Johannesburg last night.

The winning Special Assignment documentary titled ‘Hell Hole’, is about prison conditions in Zimbabwe. The documentary was co-produced by Johann Abrahams and Godknows Nare. The award was described by SABC’s acting  Head of News Phil Molefe as a golden feather in the investigative cap of SABC News.

Molefe was himself honoured for having served the public broadcaster, the CBA as well as the principles of public service broadcasting. The five-day CBA general conference heard yesterday that hundreds of journalists are  killed or come under attack around the world every year, simply for doing their jobs, and that many  others face threats and intimidation.

Harare – Police in Zimbabwe are warning they do not have enough money to feed people in holding cells around the country. The whole justice system in Zimbabwe is threatened by lack of adequate resources. Although fewer people are being arrested now than in previous years, the police say they do not have enough money to feed those held in custody at police stations. Senior Assistant Commissioner Wayne Bvudzijena said if arrested people are not given food by relatives or from sympathetic policemen paying for food out of their own pockets, detainees are going hungry. He said policemen, like many other civil servants, are only earning about $150 a month. Bvudzijena said the worst affected among those people arrested and held in rural police districts. He said some charitable organizations helped feed suspects in urban areas like Harare, but it is never enough. The assistant commissioner said the police force received less than 10 percent of the funds it requested in the last budget. He said many police vehicles no longer work and the police infrastructure is disintegrating fast.

Insiders in the Department of Justice say it is also affected with a shortage of prosecutors, magistrates, and other staff servicing the courts. This is leading to longer stays in jail for prisoners awaiting trial. Former Commercial Farmers Union president Trevor Gifford and a colleague were supposed to appear in court Friday in the eastern city Mutare. But there was no staff to process them and they were held in custody over the weekend. They were arrested on contempt of court charges because, their lawyers say, they tried to deliver a High Court order to a presiding magistrate. Other Zimbabwe government ministries are also short of cash. Education minister David Coltart said Sunday his allocation is $1 per child at school per month. He said this is a shocking statistic affecting three million school children. Finance Minister Tendai Biti is raising about $90 million a month to run Zimbabwe and there are few indications revenue is going to increase.

HARARE -Prisons commissioner Paradzayi Zimondi (Pictured) has transformed the Zimbabwe Prison Service (ZPS) into a quasi-military corps, running the correctional service as his personal fiefdom, disgruntled prison officers told The Zimbabwean this week..

They recounted how Zimondi had transmogrified the prison service from its duty to provide correctional services into a full military wing.

Sources revealed systematic plunder of the prison service by the commissioner, and how State resources had been diverted to bankroll Zimondi’s myriad personal enterprises.

Officers said food had been allegedly seized from prisons, leaving prisoners in despair.

After the March 2008 harmonised poll, prison officers recalled how Zimondi seized 100 cattle and 10 horses from Chikurubi Farm, and transferred all prison pigs to his farm. He is said to have brought famished cattle in to replace the heifers he allegedly looted.

Zimondi would seize milk and fresh produce from the farm prison and take it to his restaurant in Ruwa, called Plaka.

“He took building materials from the ZPS stores and built a dairy at his farm in Bromley,” said one officer. “Builders, electricians, carpenters were made to do the work. He built houses in Harare. I worked on some of the projects. We built a house in Milton Park, renovated one in Gunhill, and built a house for the (Justice and legal Affairs) permanent secretary, David Mangota in Donnybrooke using government materials stolen from the ZPS stores,” he said.

Other equipment was also said to have been taken to Zimondi’s two other farms in Shamva and Bindura. There are unconfirmed reports that he co-owns a banana plantation with police commissioner-general Augustine Chihuri.

It was further alleged Zimondi had properties in Kariba, where he is involved in a poaching ring slaughtering elephants for ivory. To over up the tracks, the meat is given to prisoners, but most of the time it is going bad. “He uses prison vehicles to transport the bodies of elephants,” said the officer. “Prison vehicles are not searched at roadblocks, making easy passage.”

Poaching

The poaching was said to be taking place in Gonarezhou and Hwange. The Zimbabwean heard that these activities had been going on since April 2009.

“He has also built a church in Murehwa using prison materials,” another source said.

Officers say that as far back as 1999, Zimondi established a military police branch at the ZPS. From 2001, he brought in soldiers from the Zimbabwe National Army to head all prison departments at the expense of experienced officers, who were forced into early retirement or moved from headquarters to work in prisons.

These military personnel include commissioners Ndlovu, Chihobvu – head of security; Kanonge – finance; Dube – construction, Maredza – projects and Ndebele – quartermaster.

Officers spoke exclusively to this newspaper about the purge of the prison service by Zimondi over the past decade, recounting in meticulous detail harassment and torture of officers suspected of being sympathetic to the MDC.

“From 2000, Zimondi controlled the ZPS cruelly. When Zanu (PF) lost to the MDC (in 2000), Zimondi formed the prisons military police to control and suppress MDC sympathisers in the ZPS. Torture of officers began. When Tendai Biti won the Harare East (constituency) in 2000, he held a celebration rally at Gletwyn Farm near Chikurubi. Officers who attended the rally were arrested and tortured. Some were discharged from their duties. The case was brought before the Rotten Row Magistrates Court. The perpetrators were found innocent and went back to work.”

The tortured officers were named as Shepherd Yuda, Andew Mabidi, Officer Njiri, Officer Bvunzawabaya and Officer Masarakufa, who has sine left the prison service and is now an MDC-T councillor in Mhondoro.

The situation worsened dramatically during the run-up to the sham June 27, 2008 run-off polls. At the heart of Zimondi’s terror campaign were asst commissioner Pambai, the officer-in-charge at Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison, the chief superintendent, the superintendent, principal prison officer (PPO), Gavhu, PPO Ndebele, prison officer Choto, prison officer Gonzo, prison officer Moffat, Makurudzo, PPO Malunga, prison officer Nyakahembe, PPO Ngulube.

A security department, allegedly manned by central intelligence organisation operatives Makurudzo, Mthombeni and Nyakahembe masquerading as prison officer, was formed. Efforts to obtain comment from Zimondi were futile at the time of going to print. The ZPS public relations requested written questions, which have been submitted.

GWERU- Members of the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) in the
Midlands Province say the Zimbabwe justice system does not respect people’s
liberties.

Brian Dube, one of the members of ZLHR and also the National Association of
Non Governmental Organisations (NANGO) Midlands chairperson The Zimbabwe
Telegraph that justice in Zimbabwe was only accorded to those who have
access to and can afford legal representation.

Dube was speaking after a visit to Hwahwa Prison under the Prisoners Rights
Programme, which seeks to help those that in jails and cannot afford legal
services to have access to the services for free.

Dube said as ZHLR and also as the chairperson of NANGO in the Midlands
region he had seen that it was necessary for the lawyers to intervene in
cases they feel that justice had not prevailed.

Dube said that some of the courts were just throwing people into the prison.

“Our courts are not sensitive to the right to liberty and to the presumption
of innocence until proven guilty. There are a lot of people rotting in
prisons without any trial and others are not given time to look for fines
simply because they do not have legal representation,” Dube said.

In August under the programme, Dube of Gundu, Mawarire and Partners and the
Midlands board member of ZLHR, Hillary Garikai of Garikai and Partners
helped 40 prisoners get bail after they intervened.

“Most of the prisoners, some who were on remand, were terminally ill and
some of them even had to be carried to us by the prison guards,”Dube said.

“During our interactions with them we realised that some of them had been on
remand for some time. Due to transport problems within the prison services,
some have failed to come for trial and they are forgotten in the jail.”

Dube also said that others were people who could just have been given time
to raise fines. He said some of the prisoners picked up in beerhalls for
fights, confessed that their relatives were not even aware that they were at
Hwahwa as there was no stationery at the prison for prisoners to communicate
with their families and loved ones.

Dube said it was too costly for the State to feed these prisoners instead
they could be given the opportunity to go and look for money to pay fines
which would be even more beneficial to the state.

“In particular, we visited the Shurugwi Court after suspecting the
insensitivity of the court in not granting convicts time to pay,” read part
of the report that was compiled by the two lawyers.

Dube said although they had successfully managed to help some of the
prisoners out, they were shocked during the recent visit to find that there
were again more people and they had to apply to the Shurugwi Court to allow
inmates to be given time to pay fines and they were released.

The report by the lawyers also indicate that even some mentally ill people
were at the prison instead of them being reffered to a health institution.

Sources said that although food supply had improved at the prison just
outside Gweru, malnbutrition was rife and prisoners who required ARV’s were
not getting them.

Written by Taurai Bande

HARARE-A semi-autonomous group of the Roman Catholic Church, Society of Saint Vincent de Paul (SSVP), recently bank rolled Zimbabwe’s prison farm projects to the tune of US$6 000.

The society made up of voluntary members of the church, mobilized resources to alleviate suffering among prisoners, following revelations by the South Africa Broadcasting Cooperation (SABC), that inmates in Zimbabwe’s prisons were starving and living under inhuman conditions.”We were touched by pictures of skinny prison inmates shown by the SABC, and decided to assist in whatever way possible. Initially, we donated food for inmates at various prisons across the country. To provide lasting solutions to prison woes, we decided to capacitate prisons through resuscitating collapsed farm projects. We rehabilitated irrigation equipment at Chikurubi maximum prison farm and provided farm inputs such as seed, fuel and dipping chemicals for a herd of 300 cattle at the farm,” said SSVP secretary general and president of Harare district council, Michael Mangwende.

Mangwende said: “Following the rehabilitation of irrigation equipment at Chikurubi, the prison is now in a position to provide its own vegetables for its inmates. The church society managed to resuscitate and put an 11 hectare vegetable garden under irrigation. Previously, inmates used to water the garden with cans. The project cost US$5 000. At Mazoe prison, SSVP injected US$1 000 in a four hectare vegetable project. Ridigita Prison in Marondera also benefited from our assistance to the tune of $700 for a four hectare vegetable scheme. Our assistance thrust is aimed at achieving total resuscitation of the country’s 24 prison farms,” he said.

Following revelations of shocking pictures by the SABC, SSVP also donated 800 blankets, soap and cooking oil to inmates held at eight prisons out of Harare. Each prison received 100 blankets. The society is currently assessing clothing requirements for inmates, ahead of a planed donation of prisoners’ uniforms. In the past, SSVP donated blankets and food to victims of Muzarabani floods, the cholera epidemic and orphans left by cholera victims. The food packs lasted four months. SSVP is funded by well-wishers, the Roman Catholic church and the church’s Arch-bishop.

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Editor’s comment: Once more the teflon Prison’s boss Paradzai Zimondi, who has presided over the looting and destruction of the prison farms, remains completely silent, ducking the issue and dodging the blame.

Why doesn’t the Minister of Home Affairs FIRE him?

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.

A television documentary produced with hidden cameras in Beitbridge  in March 2009 featured these emaciated prisoners.

By Our Correspondent

HARARE – There were scenes of jubilation and celebration at Harare Central Prison on Friday as relatives reunited with their loved ones as they were released  freed from prison after serving terms of incarceration.Prison authorities began releasing hordes of inmates who are beneficiaries of a recent order of clemency extended to 2 500 convicts by President Robert Mugabe.

While the total number of beneficiaries of the presidential amnesty was first reported in the state media last week as 1 544, Zimbabwe Prison Service public relations officer, Elizabeth Banda, told journalists Friday the actual number of those to be freed was 2 513.

Among those granted amnesty were all women prisoners, inmates serving three-year terms who had completed a quarter of their sentence, as well as 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.

Officials say that while Zimbabwe’s prison have a holding capacity of 17 000 inmates, the current population is about 13 000.

Elated relatives said they had been living in fear of losing their loved ones to hunger and disease in Zimbabwe’s notorious jails.

Close to 1 000 prisoners are reported to have died in Zimbabwe’s jails between January and June this year.

The death rate is said to have since dropped from three per week to two.

“I cannot believe this. For the past two nights I have not had sleep trying to contain my happiness. I will never move near a jail again,” said a visibly elated Lovemore Bvuno (63), who was released from Harare Central prison after serving for 23 years.

He was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1986 for murder.

Christopher Munyoro (64), who had served 25 years of a life sentence for the murder of his employer, said he felt born again.

Munyoro, whose entire family died of hunger and disease while he was in prison, said he was apologetic to both his victim and family.

Toendepi Mahaso, who volunteered to speak on behalf of a batch of 30 newly freed prisoners who were paraded for their final briefing by prison officers, said he was thankful to President Mugabe for the clemency.

“I say thank you very much to the President Robert Gabriel Mugabe,” he said, speaking in English. “I say thank you very much for the clemency.

“Sometimes justice has got to be tempered with mercy. Justice must have a human face and we have seen the human face of justice today by being released before our EDR (Expected Date of Release).

“We promise we are going to behave, to do very well out there. This is not the end of the world. Imprisonment is not the end of life, this is actually the beginning of a new life. Our old life has been destroyed and we are given a new lease of life.

“That is what we have received.”

The amnesty is an attempt by the current inclusive government to ease congestion in Zimbabwe’s 42 jails.

The jails are now viewed as death camps because of their poor sanitary conditions and a perennial shortage of food and medical drugs.

The country’s prisons did not survive the deadly cholera epidemic which broke out mid-last year killing 4 000 and living more than 80 000 hospitalised.

The epidemic was only contained after the intervention of humanitarian aid groups which brought medicine and other forms of assistance that helped suppress the continued spread of the dreaded disease.

ZIMBABWE – HARARE – The spotlight was on Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison on the outskirts of Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe, as 1500 prisoners were freed on a presidential amnesty decree.
The released prisoners said they were confined in overcrowded cells, measuring 9m by 4m. Typically speaking there are 25 men per cell.
Each day the men are confined to their squalid cells between the hours of 3:30pm and 7:00am. Four to five times a week they are also locked up for the guards lunch break, between the hours of 11:30am and 1:00pm.
zim NET radio was told there are no beds and so the prisoners have to sleep on mats spread out over the crowded cell floor.
Some inmates refused to wash, which resulted in blankets becoming lice infested. There is a predominance of HIV positive, practising homosexuals within this rat and lice infested prison.
The cells are shared with people in the terminal stages of AIDS, Tuberculosis, Herpes and other highly infectious diseases, as well as some prisoners who are mentally ill. This was apparent on prisoners freed Tuesday. Most of them were sick to the point of death.
Many of the infected prisoners were unable to control their bodily functions. They described scenes of prison floors and blankets being contaminated with body fluids; pus, phlegm, blood, urine, faeces.
Human rights groups said this was in contravention of Article 24 of the International Bill of Human Rights, which covers the state providing a safe environment.
The sanitary conditions they were forced to live under were a terrible threat to their well being.
———————————–

Editorial from The Zimbabwean, 4 Sept 2009

The decision by President Robert Mugabe last week to grant
amnesty to more than 1 500 prisoners in order to ease congestion in jails more than anything else demonstrates all that is wrong with Zimbabwe’s leader.

His total failure to appreciate the urgency of the disaster that is Zimbabwe today,  is made worse by utter contempt for the lowly minions that we ordinary Zimbabweans must be in his eyes.
Announcing the amnesty, Ministry of Justice permanent secretary David Mangota said Mugabe had finally acceded to pleas by prison officials to grant the amnesty as a “short-term relief option to try and contain some of these challenges seriously and negatively impacting on the effective and efficient administration of prisons”.
Really? Where has the President been living that he is realising only now that the country’s under-funded and over-crowded jails are essentially death camps where, to use Judge President Rita Makarau’s words, all inmates face death from disease and hunger.
In April, a South African television documentary showed shocking images of half-naked, skeletal prisoners wasting away from hunger and disease that were smuggled from some of Zimbabwe’s jails.
What did the government (read Mugabe and Zanu (PF) who control the justice system) do?
Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa vehemently denied the prisoners shown in the documentary were from Zimbabwean jails, while prison commanders immediately launched a witch-hunt to identify and punish prison guards who had allowed South African journalists into the jails.
When Amnesty International condemned last June the inhuman conditions in Zimbabwe’s jails where, according to the world human rights watchdog, nearly 1 000 inmates died of hunger and disease in the first six months of this year alone, again what did Mugabe and company do?
They merely buried their heads in the sand and dismissed all these reports as propaganda by Western-funded NGOs out to tarnish the “good name” of Mugabe to aid a British and American plot to oust him from power.
That the government could deny the crisis in jails while prison mortuaries where running out of space to store corpses of dead prisoners and at the same time as it allowed the Red Cross to supply food to prisons because it was failing to do so, shows such disregard for human life you would never expect even from Zanu (PF).
And when Mugabe finally awakened to the mess in jails, it took three weeks for him to sign the amnesty order because, according to Mangota, there were “some delays” in the relevant papers reaching him.
But when you consider the fact that even after the order was signed no prisoner was released because officials are yet to identify who qualifies, it becomes difficult to avoid concluding that some of these people in government actually belong in jail.