JOHANNESBURG -- A leading HIV/AIDS and womens rights advocacy group has called on the international community to act urgently to prevent a recurrence of sexual violence during Zimbabwes next election that could be held next year. Zimbabwes elections over the past decade have been accompanied by political violence and gross human rights abuses largely blamed on supporters of President Robert Mugabes Zanu (PF) party.
The country witnessed some of its worst political violence in 2008 after a parliamentary election that was won by then opposition MDC while leader Morgan Tsvangirai defeated Mugabe in a parallel presidential poll but with fewer votes to avoid a second run-off ballot.
In a bid to ensure Mugabe regained the upper hand in the second round vote, Zanu (PF) militia, war veterans and state security agents unleashed an orgy of violence including systematic rape of women across the country, especially in rural areas many of which virtually became no-go areas for the opposition.
US based Aids Free World said the perpetrators of the violence and rapes remain scot-free and are likely to commit more crimes should the world not act now to prevent this happening.
AIDS-Free World calls urgently for international action to prevent the looming carnage in Zimbabwe, the groups spokeswoman Julia Greenberg said in a statement last week.
She added: The United Nations Security Council must take the lead in confronting President Robert Mugabe. If it does not, the next presidential election period, quite likely in 2011, will condemn the women of Zimbabwe to a grisly repeat of the politically motivated rape campaign orchestrated by Mugabe during the 2008 elections.
The United Nations can choose to wait and count the number of women raped, the number of new HIV cases, and the number of tortured bodies, or it can choose to act now. In conjunction with SADC and the AU, the Security Council can finally give life to the principle of Responsibility to Protect and apply it to Zimbabwe.
The group, which said it would next month hand over to the International Criminal Court (ICC) evidence of politically motivated rape committed by Mugabes supporters, said prosecuting the perpetrators was key to ensuring there was no recurrence of the violence and abuse.
It said the alleged perpetrators of more than 380 cases committed during a carnage of rape that started in the run-up to Zimbabwes disputed presidential election run-off continue to freely roam the streets while their victims face the trauma of disease and broken families.
AIDS-Free World continues to advocate for action at the highest levels of international organizations. Next month we will speak with officials of the International Criminal Court, the group said on the sidelines of last weeks international AIDS conference in Vienna, Austria.
In the months after their brutal rapes, 37 percent of the women interviewed by AIDS-Free World tested positive for HIV.
Whether or not they acquired HIV from their rapists, the consequent trauma and displacement put their health and treatment in jeopardy, the advocacy group noted.
The culture of impunity in Zimbabwe, so entrenched that the actions of the President himself promote rape as an effective political strategy, helps spread HIV, said AIDS-Free World.
Post published in: Politics