The police, who now speak more like Zanu (PF) spin-doctors whenever you seek their comment on this or that issue, have apparently been burning the midnight oil (literally, as electricity has become such a rare commodity) scheming how to mislead the world regarding the radios.
As a result, civil society organisations left, right and centre are being subjected to all sorts of persecution and intimidation, including arbitrary arrest and detention, for daring to dole out the vital gadgets to information-starved communities.
It should be abundantly clear that the official justification of a clampdown on the CSOs and a number of politicians accused of “caching” and distributing the radios is very weak indeed. It should not be given a second glance.
One big fable that ZRP has manufactured is that the radios were smuggled into the country. Needless to say, they have not proffered any evidence to support their hypothesis, more than two weeks after making the blanket accusation.
But even if it were true, smuggling of the gadgets in such big numbers betrays fatal shortcomings in the police, customs and intelligence systems. Did they fail to sniff out the smugglers all this time?
Given the alleged smuggling of such magnitude, my first conclusion is that the police and the other departments charged with ensuring regular entry of goods into the country were turning a blind eye to the illegal importation of the radios. For many years we have heard stories, and many have witnessed first-hand, rampant corruption at our border posts.
In effect, and naively so, the police are admitting that they have colluded with alleged smugglers! Instead of focusing their meagre efforts on bona fide CSOs—for I am convinced that is what they are—the police ought to be conducting an inside investigation to establish how these radios found their way into Zimbabwe.
I don’t believe it would take them two days to establish that the radios were smuggled. All it requires is for them to ask the distributors of the radios to produce the necessary documents and then verify with Customs.
Given the fact that has not happened, I am therefore asking the police to zip their mouths on the allegation of smuggling.
The second tall tale being spun from PGHQ is that the radios are illegal. Combined with the first lie, they become illegal goods that were illegally brought into the country.
ZRP has so far made sweeping statements about the imagined illegality of the radios. They have not told us in a convincing way where the criminality actually lies.
By the way, these SW radios are not a new phenomenon in Zimbabwe. They have been there all along and the fact that the police—who should have known about it unless they are plain dunderheads—are making empty noise about them now reeks of hidden agendas.
I am not comfortable with the timing of a clampdown on the CSOs, particularly as we are heading for a crucial election. The timing of the crackdown seems a deliberate strategy to ensure that vulnerable communities do not get the chance to access alternative information regarding local politics and the coming elections.
That, of course, would be to the advantage of Zanu (PF), the party to which the Commissioner of Police, Augustine Chihuri, belongs. Chihuri knows too well the power of radio. Surely he remembers how, during the liberation struggle, Zanu and Zapu used radios to keep their combatants informed about developments?
And knowing that there are people still waging a war for real independence out there, he surely has not forgotten how Ian Smith dealt with them? So what better way of stifling a struggle than to adopt the old master’s methods?
The police have made the outlandish statement that the distributors of the radios pose a threat to national security and queried the “benevolence” of the CSOs. There should not be any debate on benevolence here. Poor villagers are struggling to buy a packet of salt and can therefore not afford a radio set.
Where is the sin, then, when someone sees that incapacity in marginalised communities and steps in to help?
After all, with the rate at which technology is moving, people can use their cellular phones as a replacement for the radios and the police don’t seem to be aware of that.
My only solace regarding this matter is that we will soon have a new constitution that empowers me and every other person to sue those who carry out arbitrary arrests and detentions in their personal capacities. Beware the Ides of March! – For feedback, please write to majonitt@gmail.com
Post published in: Opinions & Analysis