Foul mouthed and visibly drunk mobs from ZANU PF went about their violent business right in front of the riot police, in what is being attributed by legislators to a serious ‘deficiency’ by the partisan police force.
Mobs of ZANU PF supporters stormed the Parliament building in central Harare and disrupted a public hearing on the Human Rights Commission Bill. The police are being accused of being aware of the threat to the public hearing but not taking any action to deter violence and responding to the attack without urgency.
The consultative meeting, conducted by a Parliamentary group, had to be abandoned 45 minutes after it started when the ‘hired mob’ from Mbare began toy-toying, singing revolutionary sings and denouncing the MDC-T led by Prime Minister, Morgan Tsvangirai.
The group assaulted the MDC-T’s Hwange Central legislator, Brian Tshuma and also beat up several Harare based journalists including SW Radio Africa correspondent Simon Muchemwa.
“The gang rounded on me for taking pictures of a group that was attacking Financial Gazette reporter, Levi Mukarati. Fortunately I managed to break free and fled the scene,” Muchemwa said.
He added: “The police did not do anything. They just stood there watching as the ZANU PF mob was mercilessly beating up people.”
Muchemwa said, rather than moving to protect the Parliament premises from potential violence, police details were more concerned about cancelling the event, because “ZANU PF representation inside the venue was outnumbered by whites and MDC groups.”
“Of course all this is nonsense because there were no whites inside the meeting. It is unbelievable I saw people being assaulted right in front of the police but they just stood there and did nothing. Imagine if this violence was instigated by anyone other than those from ZANU PF, I think hospital beds would be full in Harare with police casualties,” Muchemwa added.
MDC-T Senator for Zaka, Misheck Marava, and leader of the Parliamentary group that convened the Harare meeting, said police were slow to respond to the violent protesters who broke into the House of Assembly.
The Senator said they will sit down soon as Parliamentary committees to express their outrage and demand an explanation from the authorities.
“The dismissive response by the police to requests for assistance was a failure to protect the right to free expression. As a politician I can say I was hugely embarrassed with what happened and I can only describe the police inaction as a major deficiency in policing,” Marava said.
He added: “The police should have moved quickly to protect people both inside and outside Parliament. The government, including the police, have a duty to protect the right of Zimbabweans to participate in Parliamentary hearings.”
President Jacob Zuma’s facilitation team, which left Harare on Friday, said they were outraged at the latest outbreak of violence, just a few metres away from Robert Mugabe and Tsvangirai’s offices.
A SADC summit in Zambia at the end of June demanded an end to ‘violence, intimidation, hate speech, harassment, and any other form of action that contradicts the letter and spirit of the Global Political Agreement’. But that rebuke has not discouraged ZANU PF militants, who continue targeting MDC supporters in different parts of the country.
Lindiwe Zulu, spokesperson for the facilitation team told SW Radio Africa that “any violence coming from any quarter at any time is really just not acceptable.”
“It is very unfortunate. That’s what Livingstone was about. The leaders at Livingstone took a firm decision to call on all three political parties to deal with that issue of violence, but also called on them to create an environment that is conducive for political activities for everybody,” Zulu said.
Post published in: Zimbabwe News