Jubilant scenes as 2 500 prisoners freed
From The Zimbabwe Times – 12th September 2009
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.
