Zimbabweans steadfastly demand that you order the cantonment of all ZDF
personnel currently deployed in the rural and urban areas and an immediate
cessation of all universally prohibited bio-chemical attacks on Zimbabwean
citizens. Furthermore, the systematic use of rape as a weapon of war by
your military auxiliaries and militias on women political activists in your
numerous re-education torture camps must end forthwith. This sadistic
premeditated use of sexual violence against women and girls is inhuman and
defies our strong African cultural values.
Unashamed partisan members of the ZDF under your direct command and control
are engaged in illegal, horrific and repugnant acts of bio-terrorism against
unarmed defenceless civilians in Zimbabwe. These unprovoked attacks carried
out by your officers and men as part of a pre-planned opposition voter
annihilation exercise, are prohibited under international law and lack human
decency.
General Chiwenga your propensity for wicked acts of brutality is infamous.
However, you have outdone yourself with this latest spate of despicable
criminal acts of viciousness, which are not only cowardly but also repulsive
and totally unforgivable.
Traumatised women, who are gang raped, children and the elderly subjected to
torture and horrendous beatings, have their ghastly open wounds sprayed with
toxic pesticides and herbicides. The Joint Operations Command (JOC) of which
you chair supplies these agricultural chemicals, logistical support, the
victims list and is responsible for drafting the operational plans in
defence of a despotic junta.
Why on God’s earth do you do this?
Zimbabwe is a member of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical
Weapons (OPCW) and a signatory to the Convention on the Prohibition of the
Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and the
Geneva Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating,
Poisonous or Other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare.
Article I, GENERAL OBLIGATIONS of the Convention: 1. Section (B) states
that, each State Party to this Convention undertakes never under any
circumstances: (b): To use chemical weapons.
The Convention thus reinforces a basic principle of law relating to the
conduct of hostilities whereby the right of the parties to an armed conflict
to choose methods or means of warfare is not unlimited. Punishment of the
crime of developing, producing, acquiring, stockpiling, retaining,
transferring or using biological or chemical weapons is based upon the
precedents set by other international treaties on crimes such as torture,
piracy, slavery and hijacking.
The 1925 Geneva Protocol forbids the use of chemical and bacteriological
agents in war. General Chiwenga, you are in gross violation of all known
rules of war and the laws of armed conflict. You flagrantly employ brutal
military tactics against unarmed peaceful civilians, which are prehistoric,
barbaric, banned by universal law and have no place in modern civilised
society.
You and your subordinates are now wanted war criminals to be punished for
crimes of war under the International Criminal Court and other international
statutes that cover the use of poison weapons, crimes of war and crimes
against humanity. Under Zimbabwean law, you are subject to a military court
marshal for these and other acts of blatant cruelty for which the penalty
under the Defence Act is death by firing squad.
The ZDF and ZANU(PF) youth militia under your unlawful military command is
using Paraquat (1,1′-dimethyl-4,4′-bipyridinium), trade name Gramoxone, a
lethal herbicide and Dimethoate
(Dimethoxyphosphinothioylthio-N-methylacetamide) trade name Rogor, a noxious
pesticide, in its low intensity conflict against the innocent rural citizens
of Zimbabwe who voted against Robert Mugabe.
The long-term effects on the victims of your chemical warfare include
respiratory ailments, liver malfunction, involuntary defecation, psychosis,
rapid heart rate, kidney failure, lung sores, and liver injury, coma and
cardiac arrest.
International arrest warrants will soon be issued. Prepare to answer for
your scorched earth policies and heinous acts alone in a court of law.
Sincerely,
Phil Matibe
Anti-Tyranny Taskforce Commander