CHITUNGWIZA, Zimbabwe — He now moves around with the aid of a wheelchair, himself a common feature now at a shopping center in Chitungwiza, a dormitory town in Zimbabwe, 25 kilometers south-east of Harare, the country’s capital.
But, not so long ago, the 42-year old Gerald Gundani was able-bodied, often leading from the front anti-government protests that took place in his hometown although he has never been a member of any of the country’s political parties.
Now, following a brutal encounter with suspected members of the Zimbabwean military early last year, Gundani has become disabled, both his legs broken.
Even after he reported to police his encounter with the alleged soldiers, no arrests have been made over one year down the line.
“Life will never be the same for me again; soldiers actually seized me from my home in front of my wife and children; they beat me so badly for days at a place I still don’t know, leaving me with broken legs,” Gundani told Ubuntu Times.
He (Gundani) was part of a group of protesters that took to the streets in January last year after the government hiked fuel prices by over 150 percent.
Then, the protesters comprising ordinary citizens and a blend of opposition political activists burnt tires and blockaded roads with rocks in protest against government decision to hike fuel prices.
The demonstrations that resulted in many casualties like Gundani, forced the country’s security forces to fire live ammunition at them (the demonstrators), killing 17 people amid reports that about 17 women were also raped during the military crackdown.
Gundani is merely one of many Zimbabweans that have been victimized by the country’s notorious security agents despite Section 59 of the country’s Constitution allowing people like him to demonstrate.
In fact, some 50 Zimbabweans, primarily political opponents and union leaders, have been kidnapped in Zimbabwe in 2019 alone, according to Human Rights Watch, a global organization that investigates and reports on abuses happening in all corners of the world.
Gundani has been amongst these at a time the country’s security forces stand out widely accused of perpetrating rights abuses.
With the country’s security forces apparently keen to crush any anti-government protests, even as the country’s leaders brag about honoring human rights here, anti-government marches are fast fading into oblivion, according to civil society leaders here.
“People are now living in fear and with soldiers and police always on the lookout for any anti-government protests, marches or gatherings, I can tell you such rights are fast melting away,” Claris Madhuku, director of the Platform for Youth Development Trust, told Ubuntu Times.
Just earlier this year, as anti-government protesters prepared to storm the streets in memory of the 17 demonstrators murdered by police and soldiers last year, police in riot gear armed with baton sticks and teargas canisters, descended on the marchers, beating them randomly, injuring many in the process.
Now, even for Zimbabwe’s ordinary imbibers like 36-year old Thomas Mupandutsi based in Chitungwiza’s Seke area, people like him have become objects of state repression as well.
“These days it has become common for soldiers to storm bars or nightclubs beating people for no apparent reasons, often telling people to just go home,” Mupandutsi told Ubuntu Times.
On 01 August 2018, soon after Zimbabwe’s first election without former President Robert Mugabe contesting, soldiers shot and killed six civilians after protesters stormed the streets demanding the release of the presidential election results.
Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa ordered a Commission of Inquiry to probe the military violations.
However, to this day even as the Motlanthe Commission completed its findings and ordered soldiers accused of perpetrating the rights abuses to be investigated and prosecuted, nothing has happened.
Instead, many Zimbabweans like Gundani have had to continue nursing indelible wounds of state repression, living in fear.
So, as rights abuse continues in Zimbabwe, even comedians have not been spared, with their comics perceived as hostile to the country’s political leaders.
Such are females like Samantha Kureya, better known as Gonyeti.
“At one time after I was kidnapped by members of the secret police; I was told straight away that I was too young to ridicule the government and accused of being paid to mock the government,” said Kureya.
She (Kureya) is one of many Zimbabwean comedians who have clashed with authorities for her anti-government theatrics.
And so for her and many other comedians, as Zimbabwe’s security agents scale up rights abuses, it is no joke being a comedian in Zimbabwe.
“Honestly, we are citizens of a country where politics is the order of the day and therefore when people in authority do bad things, as comedians, we speak out, but unfortunately as a result, we then become enemies of the state,” another comedian known as Prosper Ngomashi, better known as Comic Pastor, told Ubuntu Times.
Yet, for ordinary Zimbabweans, as known people like Kureya and Ngomashi fall prey to rights abuse, people’s fears are worse off.
“As an average citizen, I now fear to express myself because I have seen worse things happening to very popular individuals, celebrities in fact, who oppose government,” Prichard Muhaka, a 30-year old street vendor hawking sweets and cigarettes in Harare, told Ubuntu Times.
Just last year alone, in Zimbabwe, twenty people were charged with treason under Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa, according to rights defenders.
According to the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, which has handled most of the cases, the number of people charged with treason, which carries a death penalty here, rose to 20 in less than a year since Mnangagwa came to power.
Yet, even to this day, cases of human rights violations are escalating in the Southern African nation, this according to the January 2020 monthly report by human rights watchdog, the Zimbabwe Peace Project (ZPP).
“The month of January 2020 saw an increase in reported human rights violations from 119 to 185. Harassment and intimidation were the highest recorded violations at 96. Mashonaland Central province recorded the highest violations at 34,” said ZPP in its latest report.
Rattled by Zimbabwe’s human rights abuses, the UN’s outgoing coordinator in Zimbabwe, Bishaw Parajuli last year called on the country’s government to bring to justice perpetrators of human rights violations although nothing of the sort has taken place.