Smart aid bites cops Chihuri begs for help

Zimbabwe’s police force routinely torture and abuse those opposed to President Robert Mugabe’s government, particularly the women of WOZA who regularly stage peaceful protest marches.

A strategy devised by rich Western countries has precluded the police force from directly benefitting from donor funds, with financiers insisting that large-scale development assistance will only flow to the police force once there is evidence of tangible reforms, including a return to the rule of law, comprehensive security sector reforms and effective financial controls to guarantee that funding reaches the intended recipients.

The policy has asphyxiated the police force, forcing Chihuri to climb down and appeal directly to the corporate and community sectors for help.

In a speech read on Chihuri’s behalf by Commissioner Oliver Chibage at the weekend, he said the force desperately needed the support of stakeholders, as fighting crime was a collective responsibility of everyone.

“The ZRP, as a law enforcement agency, is fully cognisant that attempting to fight crime without forging robust synergies with relevant stakeholders is a futile battle,” Chibage said.

Donors have demanded that the Zimbabwean government put in place an impartial and independent police oversight body.

Over the years thousands of political and human rights activists in Zimbabwe have been arbitrary arrested, unlawfully detained, ill-treated and even tortured while in police custody, but no-one has been held accountable.

Donors have also voiced concern about the delay in implementing reforms of the police 15 months since the creation of an inclusive government.

Article 12.1(b) of the Global Political Agreement commits the inclusive government to undertake training programmes, workshops and meetings for the police and other enforcement agencies directed at the appreciation of the right of freedom of assembly and association and the proper interpretation, understanding and application of the provisions of security legislation.”

Critics have specifically called for urgent reforms of the Law and Order Section of the Criminal Investigations Department of the ZRP and the anti-riot police which have been identified by victims as the most notorious for using torture, excessive force, arbitrary arrest and unlawful detention as tools of repression against perceived political opponents since 2000.

Chibage was conspicuously silent in his appeal about the high-handedness of the police force, but said crime was pervading society, militating against the countrys socio-economic development. Crime is spiralling out of control because the inclusive government has failed to attract donor support to rebuild the economy as a result of resistance from pro-Mugabe institutions such as the police force to enact wide-sweeping reforms agreed in the GPA.