Former cabinet minister, Professor Jonathan Moyo, has claimed that the Zanu PF-led government is responsible for the human rights violations unleashed on citizens in order to cow them into silence and consolidate its hold on power.
Since independence, the country has gone through waves of violence starting with the Gukurahundi atrocities in the 1980s, the 2008 election violence, August 1 killings in 2018 and 2019 Shutdown Protests Violence.
A number of opposition party members and activists have been abducted and tortured with most of them pointing an accusatory finger at state agents.
Instead the government has denied its involvement in the terror campaign and has often blamed a ‘third force’
But Prof Moyo is emphatic that all these unresolved crimes of terror in the country were committed by the state.
“A person is abducted and you don’t know who abducted them. If a facility is bombed and you don’t know who bombed it, the answer is very clear. It is the state! It is agents of the state and this is one the most serious problems that we have faced in our country. The state takes advantage of all sorts of things to create confusion to keep the public guessing as to whom might have done it and so forth,” he said in an interview with CITE on Tuesday.
The sharp-tongued politician said, without exception, all unresolved serious crimes and atrocities that have been committed in Zimbabwe, which included the bombing of the Daily News in 2001 was done by agents of the state.
“This is why we have this dark background of unresolved atrocities, which have been committed by the state,” Prof Moyo claimed.
His sentiments come after the arrest of journalist Hopewell Chin’ono and Transform Zimbabwe leader, Jacob Ngarivhume on Monday on charges of allegedly inciting public violence linked to the planned July 31 protests.
“This is shocking but not a surprising development. It is done by people who only know one thing throughout their political careers and that is violence,” Prof Moyo said, exposing the current ‘new dispensation’ as a farce, as it used instruments of force violence against citizens.
“Because they are creatures of violence they think everyone else is like them, they are not prepared to accept that a constitutional democracy would have fundamental differences in opinion on matters of the day.”
Prof Moyo said the Emmerson Mnangagwa led administration was “afraid” as it came into power through a ‘power garb’.
“They were not elected, they used the military to grab power in 2017 and to steal an election in July 2018. Against that background the actions they have taken are totally unacceptable,” he said.
Prof Moyo noted that one of the dark spots, in Zimbabwe’s post-independence period is lack of accountability.
“Crimes have been committed in our country with impunity. Dastardly, horrible things are done and we never know who did what. All we become to know is when these things happen and yet to don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know and who controls the instruments of violence and impunity in Zimbabwe,” said the former minister.
He said interestingly, the country’s police force has an impressive record of solving crimes of violence committed by individuals but when it came to ‘very’ serious crimes or atrocities in Zimbabwe, investigations remained inconclusive.
“You don’t have guess who committed those crimes. All you need to look at, is whether the authorities resolved that crime or not, when they don’t it’s without exception the state would have committed that crime,” Prof Moyo said.
Prof Moyo who skipped the country in November 2017 and is believed to be holed up in Kenya, said he misses home but due to online communication platforms, he was in touch with extended family members back in Zimbabwe.
“Of course there is no place like home but in this digital era, home is also abroad. I am always interacting with home,” he said.
