Well work with civil society: COPAC

COPAC joint chairmen Paul Mangwana and Douglass Mwonzora (Zanu (PF) and MDC-T) respectively were quoted by the state-owned Sunday Mail and Zimbabwean online newspapers complaining bitterly about the work of the civil society groups that they accused of running a parallel process aimed at undermining the government-sponsored constitutional reforms and advancing external interests.

Mangwana went further to accuse the NGOs of a hidden agenda and said their constitutional reform monitors should be arrested.

But the two gentlemen on Tuesday backtracked on their statements, insisting they want civil society involved in the reforms. We very much want you to play a role in this process, Mwonzora told representatives from the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR), Zimbabwe Peace Project (ZPP) and Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN) that have together deployed monitors to follow on the COPAC teams.

Mwonzora added: Terms used in The Sunday Mail (story) never emanated from us. No organisation was mentioned in our press statement. Some of the statements attributed to us were not said by us. We never mentioned any organisations. Mangwana said he had called for the arrest of people he said were disrupting the outreach exercise but said this was not in reference to monitors from the three groups.

He said: I used the word arrest myself. There were some naughty people in Mashonaland West, who were interfering with the process. we want our process to be as transparent as possible. Its your right to participate but lets make it manageable. The three pro-democracy and human rights groups have dispatched 420 people around the country to monitor the government-led constitution making process in order to be able to evaluate whether the exercise was democratic and the outcome a true reflection of the peoples wishes.

The monitors have reported administrative chaos dogging the constitutional outreach exercise and widespread intimidation, with Zanu (PF) party said to be telling villagers what to say during meetings to gather the publics views. The exercise to write a new constitution for Zimbabwe to replace the current one drafted by former colonial power Britain is part of a drive by the coalition government of Mugabe and Tsvangirai to democratise the southern African countrys politics ahead of fresh elections.

Meanwhile Mangwana told journalists outside Senate Chambers after meeting representatives of the civil society that the COPAC had agreed to prepare a code of conduct for monitors and monitors from other interested groups. The commission also agreed to accredit monitors who will be given tags with serial numbers as opposed to their names. This was after civil society leaders objected to the identification of their monitors for fear of reprisals that have always characterised any monitoring of elections in Zimbabwe.