Zimbabwe Standard (Harare)
Caiphas Chimhete
17 July 2005
THE increasingly paranoid Zanu PF government has intensified its campaign aimed at instilling fear and uncertainty in the population by effectively smothering political discourse in public places, analysts have said.
By observing the pattern of arrests since the promulgation of draconian laws such as the Public Order and Security Act (POSA), they said President Mugabe's government, has upped the application of repressive laws to silence mounting dissatisfaction in the past few months.
This comes at time when there has been mounting discontent as the masses struggle to come to terms with the worsening socio-political and economic crisis.
It has become a common occurrence to see secret security details, masquerading as customers, in queues of basic commodities such as sugar, maize meal and cooking oil.
Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) director Arnold Tsunga says "insult laws" have come in handy for the government which is determined to drastically narrow the democratic space.
"We are pursuing a number of cases of this nature. This is done to limit freedom of expression and consolidate dictatorship," said Tsunga.
Under section 16 of POSA, it is a crime to "undermine the authority or insult the President" and one can be fined up to $400 000 or be imprisoned for a period not exceeding one year or both.
Wanton arrests, Tsunga said, have intensified following the political threat posed by the opposition MDC to the regime, which has has been in power since independence in 1980.
National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) chairman Lovemore Madhuku said President felt unsafe in his position and laws such as AIPPA and POSA had given him a false sense of security.
"The government has definitely intensified repression but if more and more people take a stand against the regime, it will collapse," said Madhuku, who has, on several occasions, been arrested for organizing demonstrations calling for a people-driven Constitution.
In the streets of Harare and Bulawayo, there has been a notablyheavy presence of the police, soldiers and youth militia trained at the controversial "Border Gezi" training centres .
These have become even more evident as the government cracks down on so called illegal settlements in the exercise dubbed "Operation Murambatsvina." A number of people who have publicly spoken against the operation have been brutally beaten up by the security forces.
One such victim was Lloyd Madzimure of Kambuzuma who was detained and harassed for nearly two hours after he phoned a reporter inviting him to witness the "barbaric demolitions" in the suburb.
"I did not know that I was standing next to a security officer when I phoned a reporter to come and write a story of the ruthless nature of the demolitions. He grabbed me by the belt and locked me up in the back of a police vehicle," said Madzimure, the son of MDC's Kambuzuma MP, Willias Madzimure.
The general feeling among the population now is that even in commuter buses (kombis), trains or other public places where one is likely to be overheard, freedom of speech can no longer be exercised without attracting the wrath of Mugabe's secret agents.
Late last year, Reason Tafirei was sentenced to 140-hours community service at Zengeza Primary School in Chitungwiza after he denigrated Mugabe.
Tafirei was arrested aboard a commuter bus to Chitungwiza when he was heard making statement that equated Mugabe to a dictator and British Prime Minister, Tony Blair to a saviour.
Mugabe has a history of instilling fear in his opponents. At the the height of farm invasions in 2001, he bluntly told his supporters to instil fear into "heart and mind of the white men", apparently referring to commercial farmers who resisted seizure of their properties.
However University of Zimbabwe political analyst, Heneri Dzinotyiwei, believes that there is no deliberate effort to kill public political discourse.
He said people were more concerned about putting food on their tables than political talk.
"I don't think people have been cowed. They spend most of their time trying to find alternative ways of survival," said Dzinotyiwei.
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