From The Zimbabwean – 20 January 2010
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.
Jan 21, 2010 | Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
From The Zimbabwean, 12 October 09
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?
Oct 16, 2009 | Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
HARARE, Saturday 11 July 2009 – Zimbabwe prison officials admitted for the first time on Friday dire conditions in the country’s jails, describing the under-funded and overcrowded prisons as an “embarrassment to the criminal justice system”.
Zimbabwe Prison Service (ZPS) Deputy Commissioner Washington Chimboza said the service was unable to feed or clothe prisoners to the standards prescribed by law, adding that authorities had not been to observe the rights of prisoners over the last three years.
Chimboza, who was addressing a workshop on prisoner’s rights organised by the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR), said: “The Zimbabwe Prison Service has been unable to satisfy any of its mandatory obligations due to the fact that we were heavily incapacitated . . . we have now become an embarrassment to the criminal justice system.”
The ZPS official said prisons were required under the law to provide adequate food to inmates but were unable to do so due to budgetary constraints.
“Food commodities spelt out in the statutory instrument have not been able to be provided. Since 2006 we have experienced the worst and highest death rate in the history of the service. The most severe cases were experienced in 2008 where pellagra was rampant in our prisons,” said Chimboza.
Zimbabwe has 72 prisons carrying 12 971 prisoners, according to Chimboza.
The ZPS official said most of the prisoners walked semi-naked every day because ZPS cannot afford prison uniform for both inmates and staff. The water and food situation was “very poor” at most prisons, he said.
He said ZPS was using only two pots to cook for 2 000 inmates at Chikurubi:
“The little food procured has not been prepared under healthy conditions since all the cooking pots we had have seen their days. We have resorted to using drums sourced from the neighboring Larfage Cement.
“Even after we cook the food, we don’t have plates and other utensils. Prisoners have had to rely on lunch boxes and empty ice cream containers from relatives to use as plates,” said Chimboza.
He said the situation was equally dire for lowly paid staff whose working conditions had deteriorated.
He said lack of accommodation had resulted in prison officers renting houses or rooms from prisoners. – Simplicious Chirinda, ZimOnline.
Jul 19, 2009 | Uncategorized | Leave A Comment »
July 11, 2009
HARARE, July 11 2009 – The Judge President, Rita Makarau, yesterday said it is the duty of all judicial officers to protect the rights of prisoners.
Makarau was speaking at a meeting of human and prisoner’s rights stakeholders organised by the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) in Harare.
“It is the duty of all judicial officers to protect the rights of prisoners. They must be invited to these training workshops and trainings,” said Makarau.
“Prisoners do have rights and at the High Court we are guided by the provisions of the Supreme Court and that should also be applied down to the magistrate courts.”
Makarau’s colleague and fellow High Court judge, Charles Hungwe, also told the meeting that the business of protecting the rights of prisoners does not only lie with the prisons.
“The magistrates can make unscheduled visits to any prisons. In future it will be appropriate for the Provincial Magistrate to keep an eye on what is happening at the prisons rather than just (viewing) the magistrates’ courts. They must make more frequent visits to the prisons to see what should be done,” said Hungwe.
Hungwe said he had to personally intervene to try and save the situation at Mutare prison which had become overcrowded because of the huge number of people who were arrested in the Chiadzwa diamond fields.
“Mutare Prison was overcrowded. There was a sudden influx of prisoners due to the Chiadzwa diamond rush. The police were bussing three 75-seater buses full of prisoners to court but after the granting of bail the prisoners could not pay bail,” said Hungwe.
“The result was that at some stage food stocks ran out and prisoners had to sleep standing, I made the decision to release the accused on free bail,” said Hungwe.
Speaking at the same meeting an official from the Zimbabwe Prison Service (ZPS) painted a bleak picture of the prisons.
“The Zimbabwe Prison Service has been unable to satisfy any of its mandatory obligations due to the fact that we were heavily incapacitated. We have now become an embarrassment to the criminal justice system,” said Washington Chimboza, the Deputy Commissioner of Prisons.
According to the Prisons General Regulations of 1996 the Zimbabwe Prison Services should provide adequate food to inmates but has been failing to do so.
“Food commodities spelt out in the statutory instrument have not been provided. Since 2006 we have experienced the worst and highest death rate in the history of the service. The most severe cases were experienced in 2008 when pellagra was rampant in our prisons,” said Chimboza.
“Malnutrition acted as a catalyst to most deaths given that where cases of opportunistic infections were evident, it was impossible to commence medication since there was no food in the country in general and particularly in the prisons.”
The Prison Service requires 500 tonnes of maize-meal a month to feed a prison population of 13 000 inmates. The Grain Marketing Board (GMB) is supposed to supply ZPS with these requirements but has not been able to do so.
ZPS administers a total of 46 prisons and 26 satellite prisons throughout the country. These prisons include the old type built at the turn of the last century, such as the Harare Central Prison, Masvingo Remand Prison and modern structures built after independence such as Kadoma, Mutare Farm, Chipinge and Khami Maximum Prisons. While the official holding capacity is 17 000, Deputy Chimboza said that the current prison population stands at around 12 971, comprising 10 299 convicted and 2 672 remand prisoners.
The female population stands at 694.
“Our inability to honour such a mandatory obligation has caused untold suffering to the inmate population in our custody,” said Chimboza.
“The little food procured has not been prepared under healthy conditions since all the cooking pots we had have seen their days. Of the 26 pots at Chikurubi Maximum none is working and this has led to the creation of a temporary kitchen where cast iron pots are in use.”
“We have resorted to using drums sourced from neighbouring Lafarge Cement.”
He added that they had not been able to transport inmates to court for either remand or trial to the extend of requesting that the canteen at Marondera Prison be converted into a court house for further remand.
“The security vehicles, the only four Mercedes Benz Atego trucks have been parked since August 2008 because we could not afford to repair and service them,” said Chimboza.
Chimboza said the water situation has been equally dire.
“The water situation in our prisons is very poor. Chikurubi Prison Complex has gone for five years without ZINWA providing any water,” said Chimboza.
“This shortage has seen the birth of water borne diseases due to inadequate cleanliness.”
The government recently passed a resolution allowing relatives of inmates to provide clothing and other necessities to prisoners. Chimboza said the community will have to come on board to safe the situation.
“Inmates do not lose their right to health care by virtue of being in custody,” said Chimboza.
- www.TheZimbabweTimes.com
Jul 16, 2009 | Uncategorized | Leave A Comment »
From SW Radio Africa – by Tichaona Sibanda, 4th May 2009
Defence Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa has still to brief Members of Parliament why the country’s defence chiefs still refuse to salute the Prime Minister, six weeks after the issue was raised by an MDC legislator.
The MDC MP for Makoni Central, John Nyamande, first raised the issue with Mnangagwa in March. His question has however been deferred on several occasions, due to the Defence Minister’s unavailability to respond to it.
‘Whether he’s ducking the question or not, I don’t know, but I will still ask him because sooner or later he’s going to be in parliament to answer questions,’ Nyamande said. Parliament is currently on one of it’s numerous breaks, but will reopen on the 12th May.
According to the Votes and Proceedings of the House of Assembly order no 18 of the 25th March 2009, MP Nyamande asked Mnangagwa whether the service chiefs still maintain that they will not salute Morgan Tsvangirai. He also asked the Defence Minister to explain their absence during the swearing in of Tsvangirai by Mugabe at State House.
‘People want to know what the service chiefs are up to,’ Nyamande added. The MP, an educationist by profession who holds a BA in Philosophy and a Masters in educational studies, defeated Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa in last year’s parliamentary elections.
‘In the spirit of the inclusiveness of government we expected that the service chiefs would follow in line with Robert Mugabe and Tsvangirai’s working relationship. What has suprised many of us is that they haven’t extended the same kind of respect and spirit of inclusiveness. That worries a lot of people,’ the MDC legislator said.
A source in Harare told us once Nyamande’s question was raised it was sent to Mnangagwa’s office, who in turn passed it over to the service chiefs for their input.
‘A lot of middle ranking and junior officers are of the opinion that if their commanders are reluctant to salute Tsvangirai, they should resign from the security forces. This issue has raised a series of consultations within the security forces and you can tell a lot of people are uncomfortable with the status quo,’ our source told us.
The service chiefs seem to be living up to their public vow which they made just before last year’s harmonized elections, when they said they were not going to salute Tsvangirai. Since the formation of the all inclusive government earlier this year, they have not yet demonstrated that they have abandoned their disdain for the Prime Minister.
The powerful service chiefs, who include Defence Forces Commander General Constantine Chiwenga, Army Commander Lieutenant General Phillip Sibanda, Prisons Commissioner Paradzai Zimondi, Police Commissioner General Augustine Chihuri, and Air Marshall Perence Shiri, are seen as a major stumbling block towards full implementation of the terms set by the unity agreement.
May 05, 2009 | Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
From The Zimbabwe Independent - By Lucia Makamure, 29th April 2009
LAWYERS representing 18 MDC-T activists who were last year abducted by suspected state security agents and kept incommunicado have written to the Ministry of Home Affairs demanding US$7 million compensation for their clients who were tortured.
The 18, who are facing terrorism charges, were abducted between October and December last year and held in secret locations for more than three months before being handed over to the police.
In one of the 18 letters written to the co-Ministers of Home Affairs Kembo Mohadi and Giles Mutsekwa last week, the lawyers Mbidzo, Muchadehama & Makoni, want the state to compensate their clients for physical and psychological trauma suffered during their “unlawful” detention.
“We act for our client Gandhi Mudzingwa who has asked us to notify yourselves, and officials and other persons whose names appear hereunder, of his intention to sue yourselves and the said officials and persons,” one of the letters says.
Among those being sued by the activists are Police Commissioner-General Augustine Chihuri, Minister of State Security in the President’s Office Sydney Sekeramayi, Minister of Defence Emmerson Mnangagwa, Commissioner of Prisons Paradzai Zimondi, Minister of Justice Patrick Chinamasa, Attorney-General Johannes Tomana, and the Director of the Central Intelligence Organisation, Happyton Bonyongwe.
In the case of Mudzingwa, the lawyers said their client was abducted on December 8 last year, thrown into a Mazda Familia and was assaulted while blindfolded.
“Mudzingwa was taken to an undisclosed location where he was received by a cheering crowd which further assaulted him using open hands, bricks and all sorts of objects,” the letter says.
The other MDC-T activists include Pascal Gonzo, Fedelis Chiramba, Concilia Chinanzvavana, Manuel Chinanzvavana, Mapfumo Garutsa, Regis Mujeyi, Zacharia Nkomo, Andrison Manyere, Chinototo Zulu, Kisimusi Dhlamini, Broderick Takawira, Violet Mupfuranheve, Nigel Mupfuranhewe, Pieta Kaseke, Collen Mutemagau, Audrey Zimbudzana and Tawanda Bvumo.
Mudzingwa’s lawyers said the police should be made to pay for the trauma their client suffered as they have failed to arrest his abductors.
“The police saw the persons who brought our client to the Highlands Police Station but they did nothing. They did not arrest the kidnappers who had presented themselves.
The police are therefore complicit in our client’s abduction and torture,” argued Mudzingwa’s lawyers.
Mudzingwa, the lawyers said, was a victim of enforced disappearances which were outlawed by United Nations General Assembly Resolution 47/133 of December 18 1992.
The letter also stated that the ill-treatment of the activists violated Section 15 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe, Article 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and Article 1 of the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment which all provide for the protection against inhuman treatment.
May 04, 2009 | Uncategorized | Leave A Comment »
From SW Radio Africa – By Tichaona Sibanda, 28th April 2009
The Ministry of Justice is facing fresh pressure to overhaul its prison facilities, after the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) was finally ‘allowed’ to begin work on improving conditions at the prisons.
Andre Jaross, the ICRC deputy head of delegation in Harare, said the organization began work two weeks ago at Chikurubi Maximum Security and Harare Central prisons, and would soon extend its work to other jails across the country.
The government reached an agreement with the ICRC to work in the prisons following shocking reports that emerged in the media that brought international condemnation.
Film taken secretly in the prisons showed living skeletons, unable to move, and makeshift mortuaries filled with bodies. A prison sentence in Zimbabwe today is almost a guaranteed death sentence. Prisoners who have no family to bring them extra food are virtually guaranteed a slow and very painful death.
Shepherd Yuda, a former prison officer, told us prisoners are packed into dark, airless, lice-infested cells, where they are exposed to life-threatening diseases like AIDS and tuberculosis, for which they receive little or no medical treatment.
Yuda urged the ICRC to do more than simply assess conditions in prisons, and urged them to evaluate inmates’ requirements and prepare a report for the government. He said they should call for an overhaul of the whole prison system, starting from top to bottom.
Yuda blames Prisons Commissioner Paradzai Zimondi for the decay in the prison system. He said that before Zimondi took over the country’s prison system was one of the best in the Southern African region.
‘We used to have standards and guarantees about the treatment of prisoners: an individual, whatever his or her crimes, must not be tortured; must not be held in unsanitary or unsafe conditions that could place him in danger or lead to his death; he is entitled to adequate nourishment and medical care. He is, above all, entitled to his dignity. Yet this basic right is routinely being flouted throughout the prison system in Zimbabwe,’ Yuda said.
‘Every single level of authority in our country has failed our prisoners. Overcrowding and tight budgets create an atmosphere ripe for disease, abuse and violence. Right now our prisons don’t help rehabilitate anyone. Conditions in the system create monsters instead of reforming,’ Yuda added.
Human-rights groups have also voiced their concern about the prison conditions in the country. They said it will take a major reform of the entire system to eradicate the kind of practices prevalent in the prisons.
ZimOnline reported on Monday that a local prisoners’ rights group, the Zimbabwe Association for Crime Prevention and Rehabilitation of the Offender (ZACRO), said at least two inmates die everyday from hunger and disease at Chikurubi and Harare Central – the country’s two biggest jails.
The Website said most prisoners have to survive on a single meal per day of sadza and cabbage boiled in salted water, because there is no money to buy adequate supplies.
Apr 30, 2009 | Uncategorized | Leave A Comment »
From The Zimbabwe Telegraph – By Rumbi Mundimba, 20th April, 2009
The commissioner of prisons Paradzai Zimondi has been fingered as a proponent cum-cog of the elimination axis that also targets co-Home Affairs Minister Giles Mutsekwa amid revelations that the recent Marondera road mishap that befell the minister was pay back for his earlier “outbursts” that he was eager to clip the wings of the former member of the notorious Joint Operation Command (JOC) as he was a stumbling block to national healing, Zimbabwe Telegraph has heard.
Following Mutsekwa’s public announcement that he wanted to tame Zimondi, other members of JOC notoriously known as the junta joined in the silent and subtle war and elevated his name to the top of the elimination list before he pounced his claws on their fellow soldier of misfortune.
Mutsekwa is included in the elimination list of senior MDC officials that include Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, Vice Prime Minister Thokozani Khupe, Finance Minister Tendai Biti, among others.
A family member of the Mutsekwa stable has since said that the accident that befell the co-home affairs minister was suspicious.
Mutsekwa was alone in his official Mercedes Benz when the near-tragedy occurred.
Mutsekwa was not reachable for comment by the time of going to print. He is however credited for having facilitated for the freedom of human rights director Jestina Mukoko while his fellow co-home affairs minister Kembo Mohadi was in Zambia.
The powers of the Junta were partially clipped following Robert Mugabe’s signature of the national security council bill which created the National Security Council .
Meanwhile a political commentator has said that the all-inclusive government was heading for a brick-wall as ZANU PF has mooted a plan to express its sincerity for only a year and would change its game plan in the second half of the all-inclusive arrangement.
The second half of the all-inclusive government would be used as a build up of the campaign of retribution against the MDC and other perceived enemies of the state*
Apr 30, 2009 | Uncategorized | Leave A Comment »
The Interview that Never Was
Since our Prisons Commissioner will not make a statement, comment or answer any questions from the public or the press, here are just a few of the questions to which the Zimbabwean public would love to hear the answers:
20 questions for Prisons Commissioner Paradzai Zimondi
1) When did you first become aware that the situation in your prisons had become so bad, and what did you do about it?
2) Why did you not ask for assistance from Treasury, or contact the humanitarian aid organisations before now?
3) What happened to the educational, vocational and rehabilitation programs that were in place when you took office?
4) What has happened to the prison farms under your tenure, and why are they no longer supplying food to prisoners?
5) Have you considered resigning over this issue?
6) Do you think that ZPS officers responsible for the deaths of prison inmates should be punished?
7) To whom did you submit your annual reports?
8 ) Does your administration keep proper records of the cause of death and the burial place of each inmate?
9) Are you aware that your staff may be stealing food and other supplies from the quartermaster’s stores, for their own use or to sell on the informal market?
10) When was the last time you made a personal inspection of any of your prisons?
11) Have you ever deployed your senior prison officers to perform duties outside of the prisons, for example during Operation
Makavhoterapapi?
12) Do you know that disrupting court hearings, and disobeying High Court orders, is a punishable offense called ’Contempt of Court’?
13) At what point did the medical facilities at the prisons, collapse?
14) How many prison doctors and nurses are there on the ZPS payroll today?
15) Are you aware of the provisions of the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Offenders?
16) Are you aware that Zimbabwe is signatory to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR)?
17) What measures did you take when there was an outbreak of cholera in the jails in December 2008?
18) For what services did you receive your medal (Grand Officer of the Zimbabwe Order of Merit) from President Mugabe on Armed Forces Day in August 2008?
19) Is it true that the commercial farms that you own make use of free prison labour?
20) Is it true that you supplied food and accommodation to the ‘Green Bombers’ i.e. ZanuPF youth militia in the Uzumba area, while they were engaged in torture, rape and murder of defenceless villagers before and after the 2008 elections?
Apr 27, 2009 | Uncategorized | Leave A Comment »
From The Zimbabwe telegraph – By MCEDISI NKOMO April 20, 2009
The Government of National Unity is on the verge of collapse after a meeting scheduled for Friday was aborted due to clear differences over Mugabe’s disregard of the terms of the GPA agreement which created the GNU, the Zimbabwe Telegraph has established. Mugabe, Mutambara and Tsvangirai were supposed to meet to resolve outstanding issues such as the appointment of Permanent Secretaries, Governors, Attorney General and RBZ Governor.The meeting failed to take place due to clear indications that Mugabe was unwilling to compromise.This forced the Principals to invite the deal-broker Thabo Mbeki to mediate and save the deal from collapsing.This was worsened the the already tense relationship between MDC-T and the Arned forces chiefs who walked out on Tsvangirai when he entered the National Stadium for Independence celebrations.There was very little activity in the capital city, Harare on Saturday to show that people were celebrating the 29th anniversary independence celebrations as most people went about their normal business.
There were no incidents of people being forced to attend celebrations at National Sports Stadium as had been the norm in the past. There were also no fears of rowdy party youths wearing either the Movement for Democratic Change, MDC, or Zanu PF T Shirts.
Bottle stores and hotels were almost empty with the few places open, selling goods at reduced prices. One could buy a beer for US$1 but at other places one could get two beers for the same amount in Harare.
However service chiefs were reportedly said to have shunned Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai as he arrived at the national sports stadium, the venue of this year’s independence celebrations.
The Service chiefs populaly known as JOC or the Junta in February boycotted Tsvangirai’s inauguration ceremony as Prime Minister, were said to have moved out of the national sports stadium when the master of ceremony Media Information and Publicity minister Webster Shamu announced the arrival of Tsvangirai ahead of President Robert Mugabe.
Commander of the defence forces Constantine Chiwenga, Police commissioner General Augustine Chihuri and Prison Commissioner Paradzai Zimondi rose from their seats at the time Shamu was announcing the arrival of Tsvangirai.
They went to stand at the stadium entrance where they waited for President to arrive while Tsvangirai was taking his seat.
The service chiefs last year said they would not salute Tsvangirai even if he was elected the President of the country by the people of Zimbabwe.
Tsvangirai and his deputies Thokozani Khupe and Professor Arthur Mutambara attended the independence ceremony which was held under the theme “Restoring Zimbabwe’s Vibrancy.”
The MDC had urged Zimbabweans from all walks of life to attend the ceremony which it said was coming amid a climate of new-found hope and better prospects for the country.
The MDC had previously not attended Independence Day celebrations because it said the national day had been privatized and parochialised by unilateral political interests.
“As a country, we waged a painful liberation struggle to bring back our dignity and respect for human rights that had been eroded through a century of colonialism,” said the party on the official website of the Prime Minister.
“Our challenge as we celebrate this year’s Independence Day is to look back at the journey we have travelled and begin to carve out a new chapter where we say to ourselves never again should a people be subjected to terror, selective justice, poverty, lawlessness and fear by those that govern them.
This year’s celebrations must rekindle the nation’s hopes and aspirations; especially considering the consummation of the inclusive government in February 2009 which enabled Zimbabweans to open a new chapter of national rebirth.
“Independence means jobs, food, education, shelter, basic freedoms and better health care for everyone. We believe that the direction taken by the political leaders is an important step in the right direction in achieving these fundamentals.”
“As a party, we believe this year’s celebrations must reflect the new era of inclusiveness. The Independence Day programme, the speeches and the general arrangements of this important day must reflect a diverse people working together for the betterment of the country of their birth.
The day must reflect the new-found camaraderie among erstwhile political protagonists in a new political atmosphere that engenders hope and prosperity for the people of Zimbabwe. The nation expects to hear speeches from the leaders of the various political parties who have decided to shelve narrow and partisan political interest for the national good.
This all remains wish full thinking as Mugabe has continously undermined the GNU and the MDC-T .Mugabe has refused to swear in Deputy minister of Agriculture Roy Bennet.
A few weeks back he stripped the ICT Minister Nelson Chamisa part of his responsibilites handing them to his trusted ally Nicholas Goche.
Chamisa has threatened to resign but observers believe Mugabe is just testing the MDC-Ts resolve and he is unlikely to compromise.
The MDC was expected to lead efforts to raise money from the West and to have sanctions removed.However Mugabe’s actions including supporting fresh farm invasions have made it impossible to convince the west thet Zimbabwe has changed.
Apr 21, 2009 | Uncategorized | Leave A Comment »
From The Financial Gazette - Friday, 17 April 2009 15:12
FOLLOWING the broadcast recently of a documentary on SABC exposing inhuman conditions in Zimbabwe’s prisons, three warders allegedly responsible for smuggling cameras in were arrested. They are Thabiso Nyathi, Siyai Muchechedzi and Thembinkosi Nkomo.
They predictably will be punished, but not the prison officials responsible for such cruelty and barbarism that shocked television viewers.
The condition of the skeletal and visibly ill prisoners who featured in the expose titled “Hell Hole” shocked viewers in South Africa and beyond. Surely, this cannot happen in any country in the 21st Century.
The prisoners looked like inmates of Hitler’s concentration camps or Stalin’s gulags. How could a government in this day and age permit people under its care to be treated so sadistically?
The organisation, Zimbabwe Democracy Now, ran advertisements in some South African newspapers this week calling for the resignation of Zimbabwe Prison Services Commissioner Paradzai Zimondi and his two deputies.
In any civilised country, heads would roll. But Zimbabwe no longer meets the standard of a civilised country. As usual, it is those who had the temerity to blow the whistle that will be punished.
They embarrassed the government by exposing its true nature. For that the three warders will be made an example of while those responsible for the despicable conditions in Zimbabwe’s prisons will most probably be promoted.
One of the worst legacies of the ZANU-PF government’s reign will be the manner in which it extended the brutality of the regime to segments of society by enlisting young people to perpetrate all sorts of violent crimes.
Since the formation of the Border Gezi militias about seven years ago, between 10 and 15 000 young people have been turned into robotic torturers, rapists and murderers.
Crude propaganda and substance abuse have combined to turn these youths into callous merchants of violence.
They do so fortified by knowledge that a blanket immunity protects them. Monthly stipends from the state, which are still being disbursed despite the alleged dawn of a new political era, only serve as an added incentive to do anything ordered by those calling the shots.
A culture of violence and impunity has taken root in Zimbabwe especially in the past nine years. Its seeds were, however, sown soon after independence.
Right from the onset, the ZANU-PF government responded with violent brutality to any real or perceived political threat.
Gukurahundi in the 1980s must be seen within this context. In 2000, perpetrators of violence were expanded to include those not in the formal employ of the state.
At first war veterans were at the forefront to give legitimacy to land invasions and attendant violence. Soon afterwards, as the threat posed by the MDC refused to go away, the militia was formed to add numbers and youthful energy to the regime’s campaign of violence. It is important to point out that neither the war veterans nor youth militia could have been effective without the logistical, material and financial support given by the army, police and CIO. The brutalisation of the Zimbabwean society was well underway.
Any respectable country must be built on a foundation of decent values and morality. As the violence in Zimbabwe became increasingly institutionalised, it became acceptable to loot, maim, murder and drive people from their homes.
Through crude propaganda and self-interest, a belief took root that violence against enemies of ZANU-PF was legitimate and justifiable because the party liberated Zimbabwe and was the sole custodian of the interests of its people.
Violence against Ndebeles was justified in the name of defending the revolution. So was violence against white farmers seen as the continuation of the struggle for land.
Members of the MDC were fair game because they were stooges of the British and their kith and kin in Zimbabwe. The list of fair targets grew as the threat against the regime stubbornly persisted. It is a measure of how total the impunity is for those who act in the name of the regime that no one from Gukurahundi to the violence that still continues today, has been arrested and prosecuted.
There are those who will read this and say it is improper to bring this issue up at a time when an inclusive government is trying to heal and reconcile the nation. The answer is simple: If, as is the case, all the crimes committed in the past are swept under the carpet for the comfort and convenience of politicians, nothing will be achieved.
If there is no justice, acknowledgment and compensation for victims, Zimbabwe will not move forward in a meaningful and sustainable way. These past crimes will recur. Putting a plain bandage over a festering wound never heals it.
The brutal excesses of the ZANU-PF era must be officially acknowledged and all forms of redress effected for the poison of the past not to infect a new body politic.
The regime also knew that as long as victims of its terror were poor blacks in rural areas and townships, the world would not go beyond the symbolic gestures of disapproval. No action would be taken to imperil the very existence of the regime.
No one would be brought to justice. It is no coincidence that at the height of land invasions in 2000, of the thousands of white families on farms throughout the country, only nine were murdered.
Blacks were killed in their hundreds. Such an alarming rate among whites would have provoked serious consequences for the regime’s leaders. It is sickening hypocrisy on the part of those who claim to act in the name of black Africans.
All these crimes against people over an extended period take a huge toll on the character of a nation. The humanity of perpetrators is destroyed. They operate in a moral vacuum. Nothing is sacred anymore including the lives of people. No principle is beyond sacrifice.
A culture of lust for power and greed takes over. A deep sense of entitlement lies at the centre of their thoughts and deeds. The nation loses its moral compass.
Leaders become heartless and totally oblivious to the masses’ suffering and squalor. A sense of self-righteousness and invincibility makes it impossible for them to distinguish right from wrong. Fearful and cowed the populace largely submits to this savagery.
It is this environment that makes it possible for prisoners to be allowed to needlessly die of malnutrition, hunger and disease. It is such a system that allows prisoners to live in conditions of disgusting filth in which human excrement is all over the place.
Only people who have lost their humanity can let prisoners live with dead bodies in their cells until they begin to decompose and emit an unbearably foul smell.
If a system does not care about an old lady in the rural areas who has her son murdered and home torched for supporting the opposition, how can it give a toss for prisoners?
The three warders will pay a heavy price for their bravery, patriotism and humanity. They must have known the risk they were taking, but decided to do the right thing by exposing this outrage. For that, all decent people are thankful. Their efforts may well lead to far-reaching prison reforms in the not-too-distant future.
Apr 19, 2009 | Uncategorized | Leave A Comment »
From The New York Times – April 14, 2009
From left: Paradzai Zimondi, Perrence Shiri, Constantine Chiwenga and Augustine Chihuri.
HARARE (New York Times) – President Robert Mugabe’s top lieutenants are trying to force the opposition Movement of Democratic Change to grant them amnesty for their past crimes, according to senior members of Mugabe’s party.
Their fixation on getting amnesty was described by four senior ruling party officials, all Mugabe confidants, who spoke to a Zimbabwean journalist working for The New York Times.
To protect themselves, some of Mugabe’s lieutenants are trying to implicate opposition officials in a supposed plot to overthrow the president, hoping to use it as leverage in any amnesty talks, the officials said.
Mugabe’s generals and politicians in Zanu-PF have organised campaigns of terror for decades to keep him and his party in power.
Crimes committed during last year’s election campaign, while the world watched, included abducting, detaining and torturing opposition officials and activists.
Mugabe’s lieutenants, part of an inner circle called the Joint Operations Command, know that their 85-year-old leader may not be around much longer to shield them, and fear losing not just their power and ill-gotten wealth, but their freedom, party officials said. The security chiefs include General Constantine Chiwenga, commander of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces, Air Marshall Perrence Shiri, commander of the Air Force, Commissioner General Augustine Chihuri of the police and Paradzai Zimondi commissioner of the Zimbabwe Prison Services.
Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa, one of Mugabe’s principal negotiators in the power-sharing talks that led to the current government, informally told opposition officials around the time that the transitional government took office in February that his party wanted an amnesty, according to a senior Zanu-PF official close to the talks.
“The MDC did not sound very forthcoming,” said the official.
Apr 14, 2009 | Uncategorized | Leave A Comment »
FRANK KUWANA, April 09, 2009
Co-Home Affairs minister Giles Mutsekwa has vowed to tame the controversial commissioner of prisons Paradzai Zimondi arguing that the former member of the notorious Joint Operation Command (JOC) is hindering the implementation of the rule of law, it has emerged. Mutsekwa assisted in setting free the director of the Zimbabwe Peace Project (ZPP) and former broadcaster Jestina Mukoko while his fellow minister Kembo Mohadi was in Zambia has reportedly said that Zimondi should realise that JOC has been disbanded following the introduction of the National Security Authority.The ZANU PF leader Robert Mugabe eventually appended his signature to the National Security Authority Bill that abolished the absolute powers of the junta (JOC).
Although prisons do not fall under his ministry, Mutsekwa was said to have promised to ensure that all the outstanding cases of the human rights activists and MDC supporters that are reportedly behind bars are cleared to pave the way for the practical implementation of the 100 days of economic recovery in line with the Short Term Economic Recovery Programme (STERP) that was launched less than two weeks ago.
Mutsekwa was not reachable for comment to clarify his intentions.
A subsequent workshop was held in Victoria Falls to map the way forward for Zimbabwe’s socio-economic recovery.
Zimondi was one of the service chiefs who vowed never to salute Tsvangirai arguing that he did not have the so-called straight jacket.
Since his inauguration, Tsvangirai had been persistently arguing that he does not need to be saluted for him to perform his functions.
He said that the junta would one day realise that it is necessary for a change of mindset for Zimbabwe to rise from its ashes of impoverishment.
Tsvangirai enjoys the support of the security personnel ranging from prison wardens, police officers and junior army officers following his pledge to pay civil servants in foreign currency after dollarisation of the economy that eased their socio-economic plight.
Prime Minister Tsvangirai was mobbed and given a hero’s reception when he visited Chikurubi Maximum prison to facilitate for the freedom of about 31 human rights and MDC activists that were languishing in the dungeons of solitary confinement*
Apr 10, 2009 | Uncategorized | Leave A Comment »
From The Zimbabwean – Wednesday, 08 April 2009
Prison Inmate The SABC film on the horrendous conditions inside Zimbabwean prisons has shocked the world. These grim pictures of skeletal human beings will do nothing to improve the battered image of Zimbabwe as a centre of the most appalling human rights abuses under the Mugabe regime. To make matters worse, senior government officials have discredited themselves – and the government they purport to serve – by denying the reports.
It must be noted that there are two different issues here – these men, Patrick Chinamasa and Paradzai Zimondi, are not just in a state of denial – they are lying. Let’s not beat around the bush here.
If the SABC film was taken in some other African jail, as Chinamasa claims, why have three prison officers, Thabiso Nyathi, Siyai Muchechedzi and Thembinkosi Nkomo, been arrested by Prisons internal security and detained – accused of assisting the SABC in the making of the shocking documentary? Two of these officers are from Beitbridge Prison and one from Bulawayo. They are to be charged under the Official Secrets Act.
What is needed right now is for the ministry of justice and the prison authorities to invite the Red Cross, journalists and human rights observers to tour the country’s prisons to see for themselves what the true position is. We understand 20 people are dying every day in our country’s 55 prisons. For as long as the government maintains a blanket of secrecy and deception, the world will choose to believe the SABC film
What is more, the relatives of prisoners visit these prisons and see the state in which their loved ones are being held. Many Zimbabweans have been incarcerated in these prisons, some of whom are MDC members now sitting in Parliament. They have had first-hand experience of Zimbabwean jails. Why are they not speaking out now? Surely they have come to positions of authority for such a time as this?
Their silence is disturbing.
We commend SABC for this excellent piece of journalism. The truth must be told, no mater how unpalatable. Only when it is will we begin to regain the respect and assistance of the international community.
Apr 09, 2009 | Uncategorized | Leave A Comment »
From The Zimbabwe Times – By Sibangani Sibanda, April 8, 2009
MORGAN Tsvangirayi, Tendai Biti and various other members of the former opposition movement in Zimbabwe, which is now part of the inclusive government, have spent time as enforced guests of the Zimbabwean prison system.
One must assume, therefore, that they have experienced first hand, the current conditions in our prisons. One assumes because, to the best of my knowledge, they have not disclosed, in public at least, the conditions under which they were incarcerated for various lengths of time.
When Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) treasurer and deputy Agriculture Minister designate, Roy Bennett, finally walked out of prison last month, he used an expression that has become something of a cliché. He said that he would not wish time in a Zimbabwean prison on his worst enemy.
I must admit that although I sympathized with the man, there was a part of me that thought that these were the sentiments of a white Zimbabwean failing to come to terms with the realities of prison system that thousands, including his own colleagues in the MDC, have endured in silence.
I owe Mr Bennett an apology.
This week, a South African Television channel ran a program on conditions in Zimbabwean prisons based, in part, on Bennett’s experiences. It was sobering and frightening, bringing into our homes, images that I would normally associate with black and white photographs of victims of the Holocaust and television pictures of the Ethiopian famine!
Even taking into account Zanu-PF’s grim record in government, this looked particularly horrific. Yes, they massacred people in Matebeleland in the name of flushing out dissidents. They have routinely abducted, tortured and killed opponents. They have allowed facilities that were once some of the best on the continent to deteriorate to a level where they are a danger to their supposed beneficiaries.
In short, they have been a callous, unfeeling, uncaring government. But to see live human beings living in the conditions that Zimbabwean saw in that documentary was beyond anything that I could have imagined in my county, in the 21st Century!
Now I seriously doubt Bennett will ever be sworn in as deputy minister.
It brought my opinion of Zanu-PF to a new low. Yet I was not completely surprised by this new revelation of the cruelty of a party that has always thrived on the total oppression of its people. What I found frightening was the fact that there had been so much silence on such serious violations of basic human rights at our very door step.
Prison officers who have presided over these death camps have remained silent, even when they have had to preserve the corpses of dead prisoners by covering them with sand onto which they pour water (as was described in the program); they have remained silent when there has not been enough food for the prisoners; doctors who have gone to prisons to attend to patients have said nothing. Even those close to prisoners have remained silent when their relatives have shown signs of emaciation or even told them (as they must have done) of the conditions they were living in.
Commissioner of Prisons, Paradzai Zimondi, has presided over this death and decay with such remarkable hard-heartedness that he thought nothing of dressing a few luck prisoners in bright yellow uniforms – all brand new – to go and sing “Happy 85th Birthday” to President Mugabe in Chinhoyi. At least they had more than a square meal on that day as compensation for the indignity. Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa had the audacity to suggest the emaciated figures appearing on TV screens last week were citizens of another African country.
Many almost believed them. The scenes depicted were just too terrible to be out of Zimbabwe.
And the politicians who have experienced the prison conditions for themselves have also remained silent. It is as if in Zimbabwe, nothing is too appalling. We accept whatever the government throws at us without question – as long as we are in situations that are less appalling.
Zanu-PF, if they were to be asked to account for the state of our prisons would probably blame “sanctions”, but I wonder if they will ever get asked now; now that they are part of a new “inclusive” government. In any case, what sanctions have been imposed on Zimbabwe that would account for such human suffering?
The MDC, who have the majority in Parliament but are the junior partner in the inclusive government have allowed themselves to become partly responsible for the state of our prisons – as they have allowed themselves to be identified with just about every failure of Zanu-PF. They, at least appear to still have some consciences. As they look at redressing all the other messes created by the old government, they should also look at the prisons.
Even those that society wishes to punish have some rights.
Apr 09, 2009 | Uncategorized | Leave A Comment »
From ZimDaily – by Kenneth Kudakwashe Nyoka, 8th April 2009
ZIMBABWE — HARARE —The unfolding humanitarian disaster in Zimbabwean prisons has driven me out of my little delusionary world and hit me right between the eyes.
Roy Bennett the much maligned and incarcerated MDC official attempted to highlight to the world upon his release from Mutare remand prison the inhuman and degrading conditions behind Zimbabwean prison walls but it appears everyone else is too busy with their own business and are oblivious to the plight of these wretched and dehumanised souls that are Zimbabwe’s prisoners.
Whilst it should be a given that if “you do the crime you should do the time“, it is the statutory duty of those who place these men behind those prison walls to ensure that they are well fed and nourished.
If they cannot feed them then they should explore other alternative forms of punishment to custodial sentences.
It is scandalous in the extreme that human beings should be subjected to these Dickensian and medieval conditions in prison in this the 21st century.
The magnitude of the plight of prisoners has not been accorded the attention it deserves.
The grotesque and antiquated judiciary system continues to churn out custodial punishment when it is manifestly clear that the equally antiquated and rotten prison infrastructure is completely unable to provide for these inmates.
The prison infrastructure was designed and constructed during the colonial era and there has been no expansion whatsoever in these structures as a consequence of which some of them are carrying tenfold their capacity.
The acute decline in living standards in the country due to the ruinous policies of the Zanupf Government have been replicated and magnified in the country’s prisons.
Inmates periodically starve to death and those that are living manifest severe symptoms of inter alia malnutrition and some other untreated conditions whilst others are clearly in the last stages of their lives.
This article is a clarion call to the authorities that are now in charge of running these institutions of mass suffering to act urgently to alleviate this humanitarian disaster.
There are those who will argue that we should not be overly concerned with the welfare of prisoners when we cannot even feed the ordinary law abiding citizens in the first place.
The state has through its courts taken away the liberties of these individuals and saw it fit to confine them. It has thus become vicariously liable for the sustenance of these individuals. If it cannot feed and clothe them then it should not put them there in the first place.
Recent developments and research in criminology point to the fact that imprisonment is not always the best and productive form of dealing with offenders.
Incacerating offenders often lead to a scenario where they mix with hardened criminals and chances of recidivism are compounded by imprisonment.
In the case of Zimbabwe sodomy has been well documented in the prison system and first time prisoners are at risk of being infected with the deadly HIV virus from those who routinely engage in sodomising young and vulnerable inmates.
Because of the overcrowded nature of the prisons contagious diseases like tuberculosis and other skin ailments are also rife. Sanitary conditions are woefully absent and deplorable. Toilets which do not flash are constantly overflowing with human waste.
It is an understatement to describe the conditions as hellish. It was recently reported that one prison had completely run out of the scant rations of food it had this week.
The fact is that conditions in Zimbabwean prisons have been under-reported and the longer we keep quite in the face such depravity makes us complicit in this whole inhuman transaction. We have allowed the commission of mass murder on our watch.
The puerile stench that emanates from these death holes poisons the blast of fresh air which the new political dispensation is attempting to engender.
We should not rest easily in our mansions and drive comfortably in our new government issued limousines when such a transgression is obtaining right in our faces.
Kenneth Kudakwashe Nyoka is a former magistrate and prosecutor in Zimbabwe.
Apr 08, 2009 | Uncategorized | Leave A Comment »
Saturday, 04 April 2009
BY JOHN MAKUMBE
The news that the Commissioner of the Zimbabwe Prison Services (ZPS), Paradzai Zimondi has made a U-Turn in his attitude towards Prime Minister, Morgan Tsvangirai is not funny. This is the man who publicly stated that as an avowed and staunch member of Zanu (PF) he would not salute Tsvangirai if he came into power. He further stated that should the MDC come into power he would resign his post and go and defend his farm, presumably from re-possession by the state and subsequent return to the rightful owners. It is trite to say what happened in June 2008 should be forgotten because it was done for political reasons.
Zimondi is of the sick idea that all the murders that were committed during the run-up to the run-off presidential elections should be swept aside because these were crimes committed for political ends. How sick can an official be?
Zimondi also told his subordinates to stop victimizing junior officers in the ZPS as this was no longer tolerable. It is therefore obvious that prior to the setting up of the inclusive government such practice was tolerable, if not encouraged by none other than the Commissioner himself. Junior officials were always suspected of being supporters of the MDC.
This same practice is also rampant in the police force and in the military service. It is this sick mentality that the Prime Minister (PM) will find most difficult to transform in the new Zimbabwe. My view is that people like Zimondi, Chihuri, Chiwenga and Shiri, should be written off as well beyond rehabilitation for effective service in the new Zimbabwe. They
should simply be pensioned off and dismissed form government service.
They are poison among our public servants. They need to be replaced by younger and more enlightened officers who have respect for the laws of this land. It is not enough for Zimondi to advise that the anti-Tsvangirai comments that he had made in the past should be disregarded. The man has to apologise to the PM as well as submit his resignation and go home.
What is even more depressing is the fact that, by and large, these fellows are grossly inefficient in the running of their entities. For example, just one look at the picture of prison inmates sleeping at Chikurubi (published in the Standard of 29.03.09) gives you the creeps. It is unbelievable that there are human beings in this country that are forced to live like that for years.
This is one of the outfits that crazy old Zimondi is responsible for. It is obvious that some of these inmates never wake up the following day, and it is not news at all, not to Zimondi. This is one area where well-thought out reforms could be implemented without the need for massive injections of foreign assistance.
We challenge the inclusive government to tackle this serious humanitarian situation as soon as possible in order to save lives. There is little to be expected from Zimondi, whose primary concern is his farm and blind loyalty to Zanu (PF).
It is unfortunate to have to express the sentiments that for some reason, the inclusive government seems to be dragging its feet when it comes to addressing issues of gross violations of human rights and the administration of justice. Admittedly, we are still cursed with a largely partisan judiciary and a rabidly unjust Attorney General. Transforming the
judiciary and the prison systems in this country is likely to be among the last activities that the Tsvangirai government is likely to tackle. They could perhaps begin by cleaning house from the top to the bottom. Make Zimondi and his ilk go home to their farms, please!
Apr 06, 2009 | Uncategorized | Leave A Comment »
Saturday, 24 January 2009 – BY JOHN MARIMO
HARARE – The government has established a cemetery at one of its biggest jails to bury hundreds of prisoners dying from disease and hunger, according to a confidential report shown to The Zimbabwean on Sunday. The report prepared by prison officials for Commissioner of Prisons Paradzai Zimondi paints a horrifying picture of conditions in Zimbabwe’s overcrowded jails, long neglected by a government hard pressed for cash and resources after nearly a decade of acute recession.
At one time, last month, prison officials had to contact a mass burial of decomposing bodies of prisoners that had been kept in a room at Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison for six moths because a mortuary at Harare Central Prison was full, the report said in horrifying illustration of grim conditions in jails.
Last year saw the highest number of deaths of inmates ever recorded since Zimbabwe’s 1980 independence from Britain, said the report titled “End of year 2008 brief to the Commissioner of Prisons”.
The report was handed to Zimondi on Monday this week, according to our sources in the prison service.
Efforts to get comment on the report from either Zimondi or Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa were fruitless.
According to the report, 2008 was “the most horrific and traumatic year” for both inmates and prison wardens.
Prisoners went for days without a meal and were occasionally supplied with food “only meant to keep a person alive” such as the staple sadza (a thick porridge made from maize meal) and salted, unclean water, according to the eight-page report.
“The death impact of prisoners saw the opening of a cemetery at Chikurubi Prison Farm. The main causes of prisoners’ deaths included reduced meals, shortage of drugs and poor health environment in our prisons,” it said.
“Sir, we want to believe that 2008 had the highest number of prisoners’ deaths in the history of the ZPS (Zimbabwe Prisons Service). In Mashonaland Region alone in 2008 we witnessed a total number of 900 prisoners deaths,” according to the report.
A cholera epidemic that has killed close to 3 000 Zimbabweans since August has apparently also spread to jails, killing 234 prisoners between 23 December 2008 and 10 January 2009, according to the report.
“The most challenge we faced was living with dead bodies outside mortuaries,” the grim document said. “The situation was even very bad at Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison where bodies have been kept in a room since July 2008 up to 31 December 2008 mainly because the mortuary at Harare Central Prison could not accommodate them.”
With Mugabe’s government preoccupied with trying to find money to buy food, essential medicines, fuel, electricity and for salaries for hundreds of thousands of its workers, prisoners are a forgotten lot.
More often than not, inmates in many of the country’s jails have to survive on a single meal per day of sadza and cabbage boiled in salted water because there is no money to buy adequate supplies.
An outbreak of pellagra disease in 2007 killed at least 23 inmates at the notorious Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison. Pellagra is a vitamin deficiency disease caused by shortage of vitamin B3 and protein.
Overcrowding has only helped worsen the situation with the country’s 55 jails said to be holding anything above 35 000 inmates at any given time which is more than double their designed carrying capacity of 17 000 inmates.
A parliamentary committee that toured Chikurubi and other prisons in 2006 was shocked to find inmates clad in torn, dirty uniforms and crammed into overcrowded cells with filthy; overflowing toilets that had not been flushed for weeks as water had been cut off due to unpaid bills.
The committee said in a report that the conditions in prisons were inhuman. However, nothing much has been done to date to improve conditions due to a lack of resources.
Mar 26, 2009 | Uncategorized | Leave A Comment »
10 Feb 2009
President Robert Mugabe’s regime has reneged on an agreement to release dozens of opposition activists, who have been abducted and severely tortured to extract false confessions of terrorism, before Wednesday’s swearing in of a power-sharing government in Zimbabwe.
Doctors’ affidavits seen by the Guardian reveal a pattern of torture of many of the 30 political and human rights activists held by the state for months. Nine of the prisoners seen by doctors were subjected to simulated drowning, being hung by their wrists in handcuffs and beaten, and high-voltage electric shocks.
One man was hung upside down from a tree and dumped into a water-filled drum until he passed out.
A 72-year-old man was held in a deep freeze before scalding water was poured on his genitals.
Human rights lawyers say the detainees have been tortured to force them to falsely confess to bomb attacks on police stations or plots to overthrow Mugabe, in an attempt by his regime to justify further state violence against the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).
The MDC leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, had demanded the release of the detainees, who include his own security chief and a former close aide, as a condition for being sworn in on Wednesday as prime minister in a power-sharing government with Mugabe.
A deal was reached between the MDC and Nicholas Goche, a senior negotiator in Mugabe’s ruling Zanu-PF, for 16 detainees to be released.
Some were to be taken to hospital last Friday and then quietly freed by a judge in order for the regime to save face. Eight were to appear in court on Monday on the understanding they would be freed.
But none of the detainees were produced after the prisons commissioner, Major-General Paradzai Zimondi, refused to hand them over.
Zimondi is a hardline member of the Joint Operations Command (JOC), which acts as Mugabe’s security cabinet. JOC organised the campaign of terror, beatings and killings against MDC supporters during last year’s elections. The general has threatened violence against the opposition, and recently he burst into a court and broke up a hearing on the release of some of the detainees.
The MDC is interpreting Zimondi’s intervention as evidence that the JOC intends to subvert the power-sharing administration by continuing the violence and intimidation against Tsvangirai’s officials and supporters.
Suspicion over Mugabe’s intent has been further reinforced by what the MDC says is false allegations of corruption laid against seven of its MPs last week in an attempt to overturn the party’s newly won majority in Parliament.
The tortured detainees include Kisimusi “Chris” Dhlamini, a former officer in the Central Intelligence Organisation, who became the MDC’s head of security.
According to an affidavit from a doctor who examined Dhlamini in Harare’s maximum security prison, he was repeatedly assaulted, including being subjected to simulated drowning, hung by his wrists in handcuffs, beaten and burned. The affidavit said there were injuries consistent with high-voltage electric shocks as well.
Gandi Mudzingwa, Tsvangirai’s former personal assistant, was severely beaten with sticks, kicked, subjected to simulated drowning and had his feet smashed with bricks.
Doctors’ affidavits on other prisoners show they were subjected to similar tortures, particularly having their heads forced underwater. A 72-year-old MDC activist, Fidelis Chiramba, was forced into a freezer, stripped naked and had his genitals burned with hot water.
Eight women are being held, including Jestina Mukoko, the director of the Zimbabwe Peace Project, who was abducted and tortured, and has been held in prison since last year, accused of training insurgents in Botswana to overthrow Mugabe. – guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media 2009
Mar 26, 2009 | Uncategorized | Leave A Comment »
Zim Online - by Nqobizitha Khumalo, Monday 12 May 2008
BULAWAYO – Zimbabwe prisons chief Paradzai Zimondi is funding and feeding ruling ZANU PF party militias terrorising and murdering opposition supporters in Mashonaland East province, a human rights group has said.
The Zimbabwe Peace Project (ZPP) said Zimondi sheltered and fed the ZANU PF terror gangs at his piggery farm in Uzumba district in the province from where they unleashed violence against suspected members of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party.
The group’s director Jestina Mukoko said: “We are aware of a high ranking officer Paradzai Zimondi who runs a piggery in Chidondo in Uzumba in Mashonaland East province who is feeding and funding the youths who are perpetrating the violence and are terrorising and beating villagers.”
Zimondi – who is among top security commanders loyal to President Robert Mugabe’s rule and who have publicly threatened to stage a military coup if the veteran leader was defeated in elections – was not immediately available for comment on the matter.
The ZPP and other human rights groups have long accused the army and other state security agencies of spearheading and directing a campaign of violence and murder by ZANU PF youths and war veterans that the MDC says has killed at least 24 of its members and displaced another 5 000, while 800 homesteads have been burnt down.
But this is the first time that a senior government security officer is being directly linked to political violence.
Mukoko, who was speaking at a workshop for journalists that ended in Bulawayo on Saturday, said her organisation had begun a campaign to name and shame all those involved in perpetrating violence against defenceless civilians.
“The masters of violence are ZANU PF, its supporters and state security agents and it is worrying and very sad for people to go to the extent of burning livestock and plucking out eyes of goats because the owner voted for the opposition, it is very sad,” said Mukoko.
Political violence broke out in many parts of Zimbabwe almost immediately it became clear that the MDC and its leader Morgan Tsvangirai had defeated Mugabe and his ZANU PF party in the March polls.
The MDC, Western governments and human rights groups have accused Mugabe of unleashing ZANU PF militias and the army to beat and torture Zimbabweans into backing him in a second round presidential ballot.
The run-off presidential election is due to be held at a yet unknown date after the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission said Tsvangirai defeated Mugabe but failed to garner more than 50 percent of the vote needed to take power under the country’s electoral laws.
United Nations chief Ban Ki-Moon, the United States and Zimbabwe’s former colonial power Britain have urged African leaders to do more to pressure Mugabe to end violence in Zimbabwe which is also battling unprecedented economic recession and food shortages.
The Zimbabwe government denies authorising violence and instead says it is the MDC that has carried out political violence to tarnish Mugabe’s name. – ZimOnline.
Mar 26, 2009 | Uncategorized | Leave A Comment »
05 Mar 2008
Departing from a prepared speech last Thursday during a function at which higher ranks were conferred to 14 senior officers recently promoted by President Robert Mugabe, Zimondi, who is head of prisons, said: “If the opposition wins the election, I will be the first one to resign from my job and go back to defend my piece of land.”
He also ordered his staff to vote for Mugabe saying: “I am giving you an order to vote for the President (Mugabe). Do not be distracted. The challenges we are facing are just a passing phase.”
In a press statement, ZCTU secretary general Wellington Chibebe said “the ZCTU notes with concern the reckless utterances by the head of the Zimbabwe Prison Service, Retired Major-General Paradzai Zimondi”.
Mar 26, 2009 | Uncategorized | Leave A Comment »
14 Feb 09
Members of Zimbabwean Lawyers for Human Rights have now spent three days parked outside Harare’s Chikurubi’s maximum-security prison, trying to get three seriously ill detainees to hospital for examination and treatment.
Last week when the prison authorities finally obeyed a court order and sent them to hospital, Zimbabwe Prisons Service Commander General Paradzai Zimondi sent orders they be taken back to their cells instead of being admitted.
Yesterday the three most seriously ill, Fidelis Charamba, 72 with cardiac failure, Gandi Mudzingwa in his 50s, with “dangerously high” blood pressure, and human rights worker Jestina Mukoko, were taken to a Harare private hospital, where they were examined by a private doctor and one from the prisons department.
Both doctors said the three should be taken to hospital. But before they could be admitted, Zimondi again ordered them back to prison.
Mar 26, 2009 | Uncategorized | Leave A Comment »
By ZimOnline | 04.04.2006
Prisoners in some of Zimbabwe’s overcrowded jails have to stay naked because of a shortage of uniforms that highlights deteriorating conditions in prisons as the cash-strapped government struggles for resources to maintain the institutions, independent news provider ZimOnline has learnt.
Prison officials and some former inmates say the Zimbabwe Prison Service (ZPS) is unable to provide adequate uniforms for the ever-increasing number of inmates, resulting in prisoners having to share the available uniforms.
Inmates on remand and who will be attending court are the first priority to get uniforms, while those not going to court have to stay naked or use prison blankets to cover themselves, a senior official at Harare central prison said.
Prisoners in Zimbabwe are banned from wearing their own clothes and must wear prison-issued uniforms.
The prison official, who did not want to be named because he is not authorised to disclose such information to the press, said: “There is a serious shortage of uniforms for prisoners that they have to share.
“Priority for uniforms is being given to suspects in remand prison who would be attending court. Some of the prisoners have to stay naked, but it’s kind of rotational.”
A former prisoner at the notorious Chikurubi prison, just outside Harare, Elton Mandiro, said it is “most humiliating” when he and other inmates have to hang around the prison naked because there are no uniforms.
Mandiro, who was released from Chikurubi last month, said: “We were told to remove our uniforms and hand them over so that the guys going to court appearances could wear them. We would stay naked or sometimes we would wrap those torn prison blankets, but then again they are not enough.”
ZPS commissioner Paradzai Zimondi was not available for comment on the matter, while Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa, under whose portfolio prisons fall, said he was not aware of the uniforms shortage and promised to investigate the claims that inmates sometimes had to stay naked.
Chinamasa said the government has tried to ensure conditions in jails meet international standards, but admitted it has in some cases failed to do this because of lack of money.
He said: “That’s [prisoners staying naked] news to me. We try to provide dignified conditions for our prisoners according to international requirements. To a large extent we have managed, although in some cases funding affects us.”
The uniforms shortage is only one of several problems affecting the poorly funded state jails. There is also serious overcrowding with the more than 40 prisons holding more than 22 000 inmates, which is way above their designed carrying capacity of 16 000 prisoners.
Overcrowding plus a shortage of medical drugs in prison hospitals has seen the spread of infectious diseases such as tuberculosis in prisons.
Food is also in short supply with numerous reports in the past of inmates, for example at Chikurubi prison, going for months without running water or spending weeks on a diet of dirty cabbage soup and maize-meal porridge.
A poor diet has resulted in a higher incidence of malnutrition-related illnesses among prisoners.
In a confidential report to President Robert Mugabe last February, Zimondi said conditions in the country’s prisons were so bad, with prisoners dying regularly, that every inmate was virtually on death row.
Most of those dying in prison or just after being released were dying of treatable diseases, the country’s chief jailer said in the report.
Describing the mortality rate in prisons as a “cause for concern”, Zimondi said at one of the country’s jails, which he did not name in the report, 127 prisoners had died over a period of 12 months.
The Law Society of Zimbabwe (LSZ) in 2004 described conditions in prisons as hazardous and said the country’s jails were virtual death traps. The LSZ, the representative body for the legal profession in Zimbabwe, was speaking after touring prisons.
Mar 26, 2009 | Uncategorized | Leave A Comment »
