Zimbabwe finds life is just as hard in ‘The Crocodile’s’ jaws

● Brutal treatment of female protesters latest sign the country has not shaken off repression, writes Peta Thornycroft

The footage makes for uncomfortable viewing. Sobbing, , Zimbabwe’s youngest MP relives her ordeal at the hands of men she is convinced were agents of the state.

Arrested for taking part in an anti-government protest on May 13, Joana Mamombe says she was taken to a forest and thrown into a pit with her fellow detainees, two women members of the opposition MDC Alliance.

For nearly 36 hours the women were allegedly beaten, sexually assaulted with handguns and forced to drink each other’s urine.

For many Zimbabweans, the allegations levelled by Mamombe, 27, carry overtones of the brutal presidency of Robert Mugabe, who was ousted in a coup in 2017 and died last September.

Even the official response was heavily redolent of that era. The police first admitted having detained the three women after they held a small demonstration in Harare’s Warren Park, but then denied any knowledge.

After the women were found dumped in ripped clothes, barely able to walk, on a roadside 80km outside the capital, government media implied the women had staged their own kidnapping.

And Energy Mutodi, the now sacked deputy information minister, theorised, without evidence, that the women’s injuries were inflicted during a row over payment for sex.

Although the government promised to investigate, ministers suggested they would be charged for failing to socially distance at the protest.

Such behaviour certainly bears the hallmark of bygone years, prompting accusations from opposition figures that Zimbabwe is now more repressive under Emmerson Mnangagwa than it was under Mugabe.

Mnangagwa, after all, is a Zanu-PF man.

Not only does he lead the party that has ruled Zimbabwe since independence from Britain 40 years ago, but he has often been associated with its most unreconstructed hardliners.

It was he who took charge of crushing dissent in Mugabe’s early years, although he has always denied the allegations.

But while the ruthlessness of “The Crocodile”, as Mnangagwa is known, made him indispensable to Mugabe, he was more pragmatic than the mentor he betrayed and succeeded.

The differences remain apparent. Within 24 hours of making his allegation about the women, Mutodi was sacked.

That would not have happened in the old days.

Mnangagwa’s frequent attempts, so far rebuffed, to patch things up with the West would not have happened either, and he has shown little appetite for extending the land resettlement programme.

Some effort has been made to amend or appeal repressive laws but, on the other hand, analysts say, there has been little appetite for change.

Zimbabwe’s land and agricultural policies remain unreformed. Human rights activists say new laws still fall short of international human rights standards.

There have been human rights abuses, too, including the killing of at least 17 protesters during fuel riots last year and several alleged abductions.

But some argue democratic progress has been made and that “sanctions ”— the US’s complex financial restrictions against many of Zimbabwe’s political and military leaders — should be lifted.

Yet if things are better politically, they are worse economically. Zimbabwe, which suffered financial devastation as a result of Mugabe’s land programme is, again, in the mire.

The economy shrank 8% last year, annual inflation is running at nearly 700% and the recently reintroduced Zimbabwe dollar has lost 90% of its value the past year.

Mnangagwa cannot be blamed entirely. Aside from the disastrous legacy he inherited, Zimbabwe has since had to deal with a cyclone, two droughts, and now the coronavirus.

And it can rely on little of the relief other African states benefit from because it has yet to pay off debt arrears to international lenders.

The chances of a rapid resumption of lending were dealt a blow after it was revealed that Zimbabwe’s central bank had resumed printing money.

“At the end of Mugabe’s rule the economy was levelling off, but it is downhill again,” Zimbabwean economist Tony Hawkins said.

‘It was he who took charge of crushing dissent in Mugabe’s early years, although he has always denied the allegations