CASES of food and other aid violations have been on the increase since September last year, the Zimbabwe Peace Project (ZPP) has reported.
by EVERSON MUSHAVA
In its monthly monitoring report for January released yesterday, the human rights watchdog singled out Zanu PF as the biggest perpetrator of the violations. It accused the ruling party of using food aid, such as rice donated by China, and farm inputs for political patronage.
While food denial was the most commonly recorded violation, other forms of human rights infringements, such as harassment and intimidation, continued to dominate.
Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC-T party remained the biggest target of the violations, with 34% of the victims, with Joice Mujuru’s ZimPF coming second, while about 55% refused to identify their political affiliation.
Zanu PF remained the biggest perpetrator, contributing 78,3% of all the violations, with the MDC-T and police contributing 5,3% and 2,9% respectively. About 12% refused to identify themselves while only 3% of Zanu PF supporters were victims.
“Zimbabwe Peace Project reports for January show a total of 108 violations up from last month’s. The month under focus had 655 victims altogether,” part of the ZPP reports read.
“Of these victims, those from the Zimbabwe People First (ZimPF) were 20 people at 6,4%, and those affiliated to the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC-T) stood at 34%, which translates to 107 people.”
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The human rights watchdog said a total of 655 victims and 330 perpetrators were recorded.
“67% of the victims were male, while 33% were females. 90,3% of the perpetrators were male, while 9,7% were female. Of the victims, only 3% were affiliated to Zanu PF, while 6% were affiliated to ZimPF,” said the organisation.
“34% were affiliated to the Movement for Democratic Change-Tsvangirai, while the remaining 56% were not affiliated to any known political party. One-hundred and thirty-four perpetrators were affiliated to the ruling Zanu PF party, which is 78% of the figure. The MDC-T recorded nine perpetrators, while five perpetrators were serving Zimbabwe Republic Police officers and a war veteran.”
According to the report, Mashonaland Central and Midlands provinces recorded the highest cases of rights violations mainly in the form of intimidation and harassment.
The victims either had their political meetings disrupted or were harassed or intimidated into joining other political parties.
In Harare, most of the violations were in the form of fights for market stalls that continue to be controlled by Zanu PF youths, while major violations reported in Mashonaland provinces were in the form of deprivation of freedom of expression, freedom of association and right to food, mostly against Mujuru’s ZimPF supporters.
MDC-T spokesperson, Obert Gutu, said his party had been receiving those reports from the country’s 1 958 wards.
“We are actually documenting those transgressions against our members by Zanu PF functionaries. They are denying our members food aid, even that coming from non-governmental organisations,” Gutu said.
