Kazembe has stooped so low
HOME Affairs and Cultural Heritage minister Kazembe Kazembe, the police and the Zanu PF party have stooped to new lows by arresting and charging the three MDC activists, Joanah Mamombe, Cecilia Chimbiri and Netsai Marova, with faking their torture and abduction.
Who do we believe, Kazembe and the police, the three women, Mamombe's father, human rights lawyers and doctors, staff at the hospital, the government medical doctors who examined the women or the diplomatic corps?
Looking at the evidence, Kazembe has been quick to deny the allegations of abduction and torture by their agents. They have a history of denying any acts of murder, abduction, torture, rape, indeed any form of violence by their agents and members.
The nation and world at large do not believe that the Zanu PFled government is an angel and has not abused citizens ad lib.
Do we believe that Itai Dzambara murdered himself? We have all heard stories or witnessed people who have been tortured in ways that make the Nazis look like amateurs.
Can we really believe Kazembe or Zanu PF? The police have arrested so many people on partisan lines who have never been found guilty. Can we really believe that the charges against these poor women are not the same modus operandi?
Further the police have never investigated crimes committed against MDC supporters. Under normal circumstances, any unnatural death should have been probed and an inquest held. But the police have allowed hundreds, if not thousands of deaths since 2000 to go un-investigated. Can we believe them?
Are we to believe that the three women can inflict horrific wounds on themselves to fake abduction? Further, Kazembe says that the women accused the police of their abduction. But they said no such thing, so is this an admission by Kazembe that he knows it was the police and not Central Intelligence Organisation officers, the army or Zanu PF youths?
On the other hand, the police initially admitted that it arrested the women and then backtracted after it became evident that their abduction led to horrendous torture with obvious government sanction.
How do we explain that Mamombe's car was found parked at Harare Central Police Station, yet now police say it was seen being driven by Mamombe around town? Why did police, who recovered the three from Bindura, not immediately raise suspicion that it was a fake abduction and torture as they would obviously have been able to see that the women were not distressed?
Kazembe is treading on very thin ice with the UN Rapporteur for Human Rights looking into government's record of abductions and torture.