Having had his surname erroneously changed from Chikambure to Shumba (lion) while he was doing Grade 7, he has built on the new surname to earn himself a reputation as the king of the Zimbabwean legal jungle standing up against human rights abuses inflicted by President Robert Mugabe on voices of dissent. When the regime sent him packing to South Africa in 2003, he quickly adapted and became the biblical Joseph, fighting for the rights of the millions of his countrymen scattered in the Diaspora.
Born in Chivi, Masvingo province in 1974 and now a holder of a Master of Laws qualification, Shumba is the founder and Executive Director of the Zimbabwe Exiles Forum (ZEF) – an organisation that champions the restoration of democracy in Zimbabwe and fights for the rights of those persecuted into exile by state security officers loyal to Mugabe.
The Pretoria-based human rights lawyer also sits on the boards of other organisations like the Anti-Corruption Trust of Southern Africa, set up in 2004 to campaign against corruption in the region.
Shumba, the spokesperson of the Truth and Justice Coalition of Zimbabwe, is also a Trustee of the Zimbabwe Environmental Lawyers Association and has also been a Drafting Committee member of the African NGO Forum on several occasions.
Awards
He has also raked in a number of awards, having won the Amnesty International Human Rights Defender of the Month award in 2003, the International Arts Festival Human Rights Award in 2008 and the Verwa Chirwa Award for Human Rights Defence in Africa in 2009.
Among the highlights of his career, Shumba has addressed members of the British House of Commons, the European Parliament, Dutch and Canadian government officials and MPs on Human Rights issues in Zimbabwe in 2005, 2006 and 2010 and the United States Congress in 2004, giving speeches that left much of the audience close to tears.
However, it is with ZEF that the lawyer has made his presence felt since fleeing Zimbabwe to South Africa. He founded the Southern African registered NGO in 2003 on the premise that political change that will usher in a democratic dispensation, where human dignity and civil liberties are sacrosanct in Zimbabwe, is inevitable.
The organisation is engaged in research, documentation, advocacy, lobbying and litigation around issues of human rights in and outside Zimbabwe, he told The Zimbabwean.
SA govt
Shumbas organisation has been very influential in the fight by Zimbabwean political exiles in South Africa to get recognition by that countrys government. When the South African government dragged its feet in attending to the thousands of Zimbabweans that kept queuing for asylum papers, or when those who had applied were turned away, the ZEF was always there to argue their case, resulting in some compromises being made and many benefiting.
The ZEF is also one of the Zimbabwean organisations that founded the Zimbabwe Solidarity Forum, which has continued to hold meetings with the SA government, and cleared logjams that delayed and complicated the issuance of freely processed permits to Zimbabweans and the amnesty to those who were using fraudulently-obtained documents.
Shumbas organisation is also actively involved in the fight against xenophobia, either facilitating or participating in a number of debates and workshops about the scourge, which killed at least 62 people and displaced thousands three years ago.
During the Constitutional outreach process, the ZEF held a number of workshops in South Africa, aimed at having the Diaspora also represented in the national charter. The exiles presented their own document to the Constitutional (COPAC), which demanded, among other things, the participation of the Diaspora in the countrys next elections and retributive justice for political violence cases.
However, Shumba took a long, bumpy road to get where he is today and that is what makes him more than just an ordinary lawyer.
Education
After losing his father to cancer at the age of 10, Shumba and his three siblings found themselves being moved around, as relatives avoided taking responsibility for them. He attended five schools in four different provinces for his seven-year primary education.
He went on to attain 7 A’s and a C in his Ordinary Level and caught the eyes of Mary Austin and John Ayton, who became his foster parents and sent him to study A Level, where he got 12 points and went on to study law at the University of Zimbabwe.
They are now based in the UK after having had to deal with Zanu (PF) persecution for standing up to defend the rule of law, said Shumba. They have assisted me during the numerous times when I was arrested, especially when I was tortured in 2003. Mary and John also assisted me to put my young brothers and sister through school, and for that I will be eternally grateful to them.
Shumba was suspended from his university studies for two years between 1995 and 1997 for leading demonstrations against police brutality. He assumed the role of Student Representative Council President soon after reinstatement, but was detained for days at the Harare Central police station by members of Zimbabwes security forces for attempting to present a petition protesting against lawlessness, human rights violations and the increasingly dictatorial tendencies of the Zanu (PF) government, which stopped him from formally graduating from Law school in 2000.
I practiced as a human rights lawyer with the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum before I was forced to flee the country when I was arrested and brutally tortured for representing MDC MP Job Sikhala in a matter in which he alleged political harassment by members of the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP), he added.
My torture has been widely documented and is the subject of a case against Zimbabwe at the African Commission.
Shumbas Torture
Before the torture, Shumba was bundled into a police vehicle in the still of the night in Harare by police officers, soldiers and members of Mugabes dreaded spy agency the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO armed with AK 47’s, tear gas canisters, grenades and vicious-looking dogs and told him that there was ‘no place for human rights lawyers in Zimbabwe’.
I was stripped utterly naked, then had my hands and feet handcuffed and bound so that I was in a foetal position, Shumba briefly described his torture.
The police then thrust a thick plank between my legs and hands. Other planks lined the room and the light was dim. In a corner to my right side, there was a pool of what my tormentors told me was acid, into which I could be dissolved without a trace. I was also informed that I could be crucified on the planks against the wall, or have needles thrust into my urethra if ‘you are not co-operative’. In the middle of the room were a small table and a chair. About 15 or so interrogators stood over me and some of them began assaulting me with booted-feet and fists all over the body. I was then given the option of either ‘telling the truth or dying a slow and painful death’.
Several questions were asked about my background as a student activist, my allegiance to the MDC, the political affiliation of judges, my scholarship to pursue the Master’s Degree in South Africa, my alleged involvement in the burning of a government bus, my political ambitions, as well as the arms caches that the MDC was alleged to have had. At some point I was hung upside down on the planks and assaulted beneath the feet with wooden and rubber truncheons, as well as some pieces of metal.
The lawyer was subjected to various torture methods, including the most notorious electrical shocks on his toes, genitals, mouth and ears for about eight to nine hours.
On several occasions, I lost consciousness only to be revived to face the same ordeal. A chemical substance was applied to my body. I also lost control of my bladder, vomited blood and was forced to drink my urine and lick my vomit.
I was also urinated upon by several of my interrogators. Whilst the questioning was in process, several photographs were taken of me cringing and writhing in pain and in nakedness.
In total, Shumba says he was arrested and assaulted or tortured 14 times under the regime of Mugabe before he fled to South Africa in 2003, but that has turned him into a passionate fighter for the rights of those who still go through the same ordeal as his, seeking the immediate democratisation of the country, which will bring justice to all.
He has published a number of journals, newsletters, as well as newspaper and Internet Articles highlighting human rights issues since 2004.
Post published in: Politics