The Sierra Leone Association of Journalists (SLAJ) on September 22, 2008 imposed a news blackout on police activities as part of a campaign to demand justice for journalists who were violently assaulted by personnel of the Sierra Leone Police Force in August.

On August 13 police personnel deployed at the country’s State House in Freetown, the capital, assaulted eight journalists covering a meeting between the two major political parties: the ruling All Peoples Congress Party (APC) and the main opposition Sierra Leone Peoples Party (SLPP).The journalists in the process lost equipment, including cameras, cellular phones and audio recorders.

The Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA)’s correspondent reported that at a meeting on September 20, SLAJ members unanimously resolved that the blackout should remain in force, until the police provide adequate compensation to all the affected journalists.

The SLAJ said the police have failed to comply with recommendations of a committee that was set up to investigate the incident.

SLAJ said should the police fail to act on the request, it will further extend its action to the government, since some supporters of the ruling party also assaulted the journalists on the same day at the ruling party’s headquarters.

The Media Foundation for West Africa

The crisis in Zimbabwe is set to deepen, analysts said, as President Robert Mugabe appeared to be "digging in" by trying to wrest control of parliament on 25 August, and hopes of a transitional government are waning.

The convening of parliament and the appointments are a breach of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed by the ZANU-PF and the two factions of the MDC in July to pave the way for talks to resolve the political impasse, said Lovemore Madhuku, chairperson of the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA), an NGO lobbying for a new, people-driven constitution.

The MOU stipulated that none of the parties could make unilateral decisions before a deal for an inclusive government was announced, but talks being mediated by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) representative, South African President Thabo Mbeki, have been deadlocked over how power should be shared between Mugabe and Tsvangirai.

Mugabe's ZANU-PF backed a candidate from the smaller faction of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC-M) to be the speaker of parliament, against the candidate proposed by main faction, MDC-T, led by Morgan Tsvangirai.

In a surprise result, Lovemore Moyo, chairman of the Tsvangirai-led MDC, became the first opposition speaker since the country's independence in 1980.
However, Mugabe has also appointed three non-constituency members of the Senate and eight provincial governors without consulting the opposition.

"It should be borne in mind that the MOU is a political document, not a legally binding one, and ZANU-PF could feel at liberty to put it aside," Madhuku commented.

"As it is, it is likely that Mugabe will go ahead and announce a full cabinet, considering that he has already taken the first step by announcing provincial resident ministers [governors], and that could make the signing of a deal impossible," he added.

Mugabe lost the general elections on 29 March, and won the presidential run-off on 27 June as the sole candidate after MDC leader Tsvangirai withdrew because his supporters were being violently attacked.

Chris Mhike, a legal expert and political commentator, told IRIN that indications on the ground were that Mugabe was digging in and going for broke.

"The voting trends for the speaker's post indicate a purely party political agenda and not a national agenda," he said. "The fact that Mugabe appointed governors only from his party is another indication that the talks are in trouble."

Brian Raftopolous, a Zimbabwean academic and analyst, said Mbeki could call for a resumption of talks soon, as it seemed that Mugabe "will not give any ground. He [Mugabe] has forced the MDC MPs [members of parliament] to be sworn in, and that will see the impasse continue."

Economic crisis

Zimbabwe's economic crisis is set to worsen, Innocent Makwiramiti, a Harare-based economic analyst, told IRIN. Almost everything is in short supply and annual inflation has risen above 11 million percent.

"Hopes of an economic turnaround were pinned on a successful political deal. Given the direction in which things are moving, the economic crisis will worsen," Makwiramiti commented.

"I foresee a situation in which industry will grind to a complete halt in the next six months, thousands of people will join millions of other Zimbabweans who are living outside the country as economic refugees, and there will be more political tension."

Tension brewing

Signs of political tension have resurfaced, after a lull in the political violence that erupted following the March elections. Police briefly detained two members of parliament from the Tsvangirai-led MDC on 25 August.

The police also reported two bombings in the capital, Harare: in the first incident, earlier in August, several offices at Harare central police station were blown up; the second damaged a railway track 30km west of the city on 21 August.

Police commissioner general Augustine Chihuri recently admitted that they had not been able to establish who was behind the bombings, but hinted that disgruntled officers could be behind the police station incident.

IRIN

IMr. Ousainou Darboe, leader of the main opposition party, United Democratic Party (UDP), has maintained that his reputation as a leading opposition politician is not driven by any lust for power but that he is motivated by the patriotic desire to put right the wrongs of the government on certain fundamental things concerning the way and manner the affairs of the nation are being conducted.  “If the government is handling things in the proper manner, I will not be opposing them. So this is why I am in the opposing then,” he maintained.

Mr. Darboe made these remarks recently in an exclusive interview with this paper.

Reflecting on the much-vaunted achievements of the Jammeh administration over the past 14 years, Mr. Darboe acknowledged that no matter how “incompetent a government might be, it will not be in charge of the affairs of a state for 14 years and not achieve anything.”

He however noted that a more conscious approach would be to assess the degree and proportion of the achievement in relation to a specific time span- which in the case of the APRC is 14 years now- rather than a naïve and credulous acceptance of supposed achievements and accomplishments. “That would be utterly wrong and anyone in my view who says that the government has not achieved anything in the past 14 years would really be doing some moment of disservice to himself and probably disservice to the regime, but then it is the degree of the achievement that one should talk about,” he said.

The UDP leader used the occasion to call on the government to improve on the relation between the opposition and government, reiterating that it would be in order for government to be consulting the opposition on some major national issues. “What I know of relations between the opposition and government is, a responsible government would always consult the opposition, not on all issues, but on some major issues.

“I think it is important that government consults the opposition and listens to their views, whether they accept it or not. But then they would have had the opportunity of listening to views that may be different from theirs,” he said.

Further asked whether he would consider working with the government if invited to do so, Mr. Darboe replied in the affirmative, but was quick to add that it will have to be based on certain terms and conditions.

Halifa Sallah, the spokesperson of the opposition National Alliance for Democracy and Development (NADD), has written off the APRC regime as a failure and called on the government to recognise that failure and then build more democratic institutions. “It has already been proven that this government cannot enhance liberty and that it lacks the capacity to move the country away from poverty and, as a result, it has failed this country,” he contended.

Mr. Sallah made this assertion in an exclusive interview with this reporter recently at the People’s Centre in Serekunda. He went on to buttress his assertion by making reference to the employment situation in the country, saying that job creation, a promotional factor for public service, is all but nil in the present administration. “Fourteen years on, government cannot establish a model system for public enterprises where all of them will be profitable, make profit, and then pay dividend,” he observed.

According to him, though a number of banks have been established over the past few years, there is no development in the productive base of the economy.

He said: “The objective of development is to eradicate poverty and enhance prosperity. Looking at the income of public servants, a qualified teacher or nurse receiving D1, 700 with a bag of rice at D800, plus transport increase, one cannot even feed oneself as an individual with such a salary.

“People must make a demarcation between development and mere infrastructure. You can improve infrastructure but compared to the larger needs of the people, you may find out that maybe 20% of our roads are paved and the rest are not paved,” he said.

He dwelt on what he termed as prevailing realities in the public service, noting that some pensioners are getting a raw deal after decades of service due to non-payment of their pension while public enterprises that should have been the pride of the nation have been run down as a result of mismanagement. “Looking at the public services, you have Gamtel, Nawec and GPTC. You have people who should have received their pensions for quite a long time now but they have not because nothing has been paid to SSHFC to pay them and you are talking about poverty eradication. After 14 years of so-called development, GPTC has collapsed. It is not generating the employment that is needed.

“You look at Gamtel, it is also in a similar situation. The service has expanded, billions have been accumulated over the years under the public service. But what happens to all that to a point that you have to privatise half of the company?” he concluded on a quizzical note.

Its seems at last as if there may be light at the end of the tunnel for the people of Zimbabwe. A new deal has been signed which says that power-sharing talks between President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu-PF and the opposition MDC should be completed within two weeks.

The people of that beleaguered nation have waited a long time for progress of this kind and both sides in the talks must keep the suffering of the people foremost in their minds as they engage in dialogue.

Zimbabweans have warmly welcomed a deal setting a framework for talks on the country’s political crisis.

Residents in Harare and Bulawayo told the BBC they were excited at news of the agreement, saying they hoped it would allow a return to normal life.

One resident in the capital, Harare, told the BBC that Zimbabweans were “looking forward to peace and development.”

“We should make sure people have enough food and enough medicines in hospital,” said another. These are basic human rights to which the people are entitled. Unfortunately the power struggle, and the political crisis it sparked, have led to the people suffering badly in many different ways.

The talks will not be easy as the bitterness and resentment runs deep on both sides.

The MDC says at least 120 of its supporters have been killed, about 5,000 abducted and 200,000 forced from their homes since the first round of the elections, in a campaign of violence by pro-Mugabe militias and the army.

Cabinet ministers and military officials have denied the charges.

Robert Mugabe on the other hand has made his feelings for Morgan Tsvangirai perfectly clear for many years now and it is plain that he would not be engaged in talks unless he felt he had no option but to do so.

Let us hope that the needs and rights of the people of Zimbabwe come before the feelings and power lust of both these men. The citizens of that nation have suffered for long enough.

“Compassion and love are mere luxuries. As the source of both inner and external peace, they are fundamental to the continued survival of our species.”

Dalai Lama

Stanlus Marowa's brief stint as a henchman recruited by local ZANU-PF party leaders is coming back to haunt him since they abandoned him, and he is now facing the wrath of his community and charges of assault and theft.

Marowa, 24, unemployed and living the dormitory town of Chitungwiza, 30km south of the capital, Harare, told IRIN that he had engaged in acts of torture against supporters of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) after the 29 March poll, in which the ruling ZANU-PF party lost its majority in parliament for the first time since independence in 1980 and its leader, Robert Mugabe, came off second best in the presidential poll.

Marowa told IRIN he was "conscripted" by ZANU-PF into a youth militia, and was tasked with identifying and torturing MDC supporters in St Mary's, a suburb of Chitungwiza.

"My victims reported me to the police for beating them up and stealing from their houses and, at that time, I thought that the police, as in the past, would take no action."
 
But after Mugabe, as the sole candidate, won the second-round presidential runoff on 29 June, Marowa found things had changed.

"When I asked [ZANU-PF] party leaders in my area to intervene, they told me that they could not protect me since the elections were over and Mugabe had won," said Marowa, who has appeared in court on charges of housebreaking and assault. "I am now alone, I have been cheated and I don't think the feeling of guilt that I have now will ever go away."
The election has been widely condemned, and even the few African observer missions permitted to monitor the poll have declared it not free and fair.

Mugabe, who has ruled the southern African state for 28 years, denied any complicity in election violence. "I instructed them to go and campaign for me, not to beat up people," he said, and has also blamed the MDC for the violence.
 
Marowa said he and scores of other youth militia had operated from a base that had since been dismantled; his colleagues, fearing arrest, had fled to rural areas - where political violence is still being reported - to escape prosecution.

"I am now being treated like a leper or murderer [by the community] simply because I was too stupid to know that I was fighting other people's war on the basis of empty promises."

He said local ZANU-PF leaders had promised him rewards for his handiwork, such as scholarships to study overseas - even though he failed his exams - or a job in government, if Mugabe was re-elected.

While Marowa has turned to the church for redemption, the victims of political violence said their experiences were too raw to contemplate forgiveness.

"How does it feel to lose a relative, to be maimed or raped and to lose your property, simply for exercising your vote? Why would these militias be so ready to participate in this war of attrition, particularly when they are neighbours?" said Grange Mairos, 68, who lives in St Mary's suburb.

No forgiveness from victims

"We told them chickens would come back home to roost, and that is what is happening, exactly." He said he helped his daughter open a case of rape against another member of the militia, "but when reporting, you need to be careful and stay away from politics as much as possible, otherwise you can frighten the police from recording your case," he told IRIN.

Mairos has not managed to visit his home in rural Masvingo Province, in southeastern Zimbabwe, since the beginning of May, for fear of attack, but he has been told by relatives that the militia killed his three goats and took his grain to use as food at their bases, which were also used as torture camps.

"Once the dust has settled, those who stole my livestock and grain will have to compensate me or face jail; I know them," Mairos said.

David Chimhini, the director of the Harare-based Zimbabwe Civic Education Trust, said it would be difficult for victims to forgive their "enemies", but it was important that political parties "invest their efforts in a process of national healing and promote a culture of tolerance and forgiveness, if we are to pull out of this mess".

"You can't underestimate the urge for revenge among victims, now that they have a sense of boldness as the election fever subsides. But retaliation would be regrettable, given the sorry state that post-election violence has left our country in. Political parties and civil society should come together and build the capacity in communities for co-existence," Chimhini told IRIN.

He said it was "unfortunate that innocent people were turned into murderers by political leaders who just want to safeguard their personal interests", but also conceded that some of the perpetrators of violence were "settling personal scores with their enemies, yet others were naively overzealous".

IRIN 

The already high levels of politically motivated violence in Zimbabwe's rural areas are escalating, the opposition Movement for Democratic Change told IRIN.

Violence surged in the aftermath of the 29 March elections, in which ZANU-PF lost it majority in parliament for the first time since independence from Britain in 1980, and its leader, Robert Mugabe, come off second best to MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai in the presidential ballot. It continued in the lead-up to the second round of presidential voting on 27 June.

The presidential run-off ballot was deemed necessary after neither presidential candidate managed to achieve the 50 percent plus one vote required for an outright win.

In the interregnum between the 29 March and 27 June polls, there were reports of widespread violence, torture and internal displacement, which, according to the MDC, resulted in the deaths of more than 80 of their supporters and led to Tsvangirai's decision to withdraw his candidacy.

Mugabe, who has ruled for 28 years, claimed a landslide victory in the second round.

Rape as a weapon

Pishai Muchauraya, the MDC spokesperson for the country's eastern province of Manicaland and newly elected parliamentarian for Makoni South, told IRIN the violence intensified after Mugabe was sworn in as president two days after the vote, on the eve of the African Union summit in Egypt.
"The torture camps are still in place, and since the beginning of July three supporters of the MDC have been murdered by ZANU-PF militia and war veterans at the torture camps. Several women, including a 70-year-old grandmother and a 15-year-old girl, have been gang-raped, while beatings and displacements continue. People are being forced to donate goats, cattle and women to the bases to avoid being victims."

Rape was being used as a "deplorable" weapon against those perceived as not supporting ZANU-PF, and "In many instances, the victims cannot remember the number of people who raped them but it is usually more than 20, and that increases the chances of infecting the victims with HIV/AIDS," Muchauraya said.

"The perpetrators ... also expose themselves to infection, which could have a significant impact on reversing the impact of the HIV/AIDS pandemic."

Muchauraya said "the siege" by government supporters was an attempt to change the political culture and thinking in rural areas, and that rather than being dismantled, "more torture camps are being established."

During the independence war against white rule, the rural areas were the bastion of support for Zimbabwe's guerrilla armies, and the rural vote against the ruling ZANU-PF in the recent elections was seen as an insult by the country's ruling elite, according to political analysts.

"The international community has rejected the 27 June circus, in which Robert Mugabe contested against himself and declared himself the winner. ZANU-PF is subjugating everybody, so that if another election is called, and even if it was free and fair, people would vote for ZANU-PF out of fear," Muchauraya said.

Social welfare minister Nicholas Goche told IRIN the upsurge in violence was a consequence of the MDC attacking their own supporters in a bid to create sympathy among the international community.

"The MDC stage-managed these developments in order to coincide with the G8 summit [in Japan] so that Zimbabwe is put on the agenda. The idea is to give the impression that there is increasing political violence and that people are still being beaten, but all that is false."

In reaction to Goche's comment, MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa told IRIN: "As the MDC, we are deeply concerned by the upsurge in political violence, especially in the countryside. We are overwhelmed by the number of internally displaced persons who continue to flock to our offices.

"War veterans and ZANU-PF militia are behind these attacks. We have information that the torture chambers have not been dismantled and that new ones are being set up," he said.

Apparatus of violence

A "demobilised" member of ZANU-PF's youth militia, who declined to be identified, told IRIN that only the militia bases in urban areas were being dismantled.

"Some of my colleagues have relocated to rural areas to set up new bases or join existing ones. They have launched Operation Makazviitirei [Operation Why Did You Ever Vote for the MDC]," he said. This operation has been running since ZANU-PF lost the general elections on 29 March.

"On the eve of voting [in the presidential runoff on 27 June] we mobilised all the people to spend the night at an all-night vigil, so that they would go straight from the base to the polling station. Our base commander, a serving soldier who is a war veteran, was in charge, and the same appeared to be the case with other bases.
"Unfortunately, the lines of communication are so vague  that some of my colleagues, who had not been officially told to stop mobilising the people [in urban areas], have been severely beaten up by the police and army for political violence," he said.

The ruling party had ordered that political violence cease in urban areas, as it was difficult to hide such activities and exposed ZANU-PF to international criticism, the youth militia member said.

ZANU-PF has mobilised the three main pillars of the party: the Youth League, which also contains the Youth Brigade; the Women's League; and its Main Wing, comprised mainly of male ZANU-PF members.

The Youth Brigade has been wearing uniforms since the 1980s, but in 2000, after Mugabe launched the fast-track land reform programme to redistribute white commercial farmland to landless blacks, ZANU-PF established a National Youth Service. Its graduates - also known as the Green Bombers because they dress in green fatigues - combined with the Youth Brigade and are collectively called the ZANU-PF youth militia.

The militia recruits youth from the ranks of both the urban and rural unemployed and though they do not receive payment, they use their positions to force people to supply them with food and drink.

These young people fight against opposition activists and were responsible for rounding up and frog-marching people to "re-education and re-orientation bases", known as torture camps by the MDC, the youth militia member told IRIN.

He said youth militia were never accepted into the party hierarchy, as these positions were the preserve of "old men and women".

The militia bases were usually established in schools or clinics and were under the overall command of veterans of Zimbabwe's liberation war, or serving members of the army or security services, he said.

The youth militia member said all-night vigils were held, during which those brought to the bases were made to sing liberation songs and chant praises to Mugabe, and to publicly "confess" to being opposition members and then denounce the MDC.

IRIN 

Hundreds, possibly thousands, of people, including children, suspected of terrorism-related offences, have been arrested in Tunisia since the introduction of the Anti-Terrorism Law in 2003. Authorities use the broad definition of ‘terrorism’ in this law to criminalize legitimate and peaceful opposition activities.

Many have been tortured and otherwise ill-treated, held in incommunicado detention and subjected to enforced disappearances in the last five years. At least 977 people have been tried and sentenced since June 2006 - after unfair trials before military and other courts - to long prison terms or even death.

The Tunisian government continues to say that the human rights situation in the country is improving. The legal reforms that should offer better protection for human rights are, in practice, little more than hollow promises.

Abuses by security forces continue unabated and are committed with impunity, as the report In the Name of Security: Routine Abuses in Tunisia reveals.

Despite the record of violations, Arab and European governments and the US government have returned people they suspected of involvement in terrorism to Tunisia, where they have then suffered arbitrary arrest and detention, torture or other ill-treatment, and blatantly unfair trials.
A responsibility of all governments
The Tunisian government has a duty to protect its population from violent attacks, but when doing so it must comply with its obligations under international law. The government must condemn torture and other ill-treatment and bring to justice those responsible for authorizing and inflicting it.

Foreign governments should reject the rhetoric of the Tunisian government and face up to the reality of human rights violations in the country. Instead of forcibly returning Tunisian nationals, they should ensure that all cooperation in the context of counter-terrorism complies with human rights standards and put pressure on the Tunisian government to prevent torture and hold torturers to account.

Amnesty International