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.

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?

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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*

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?