Zim exhibit to press for action

2008-08-27 08:15

Donna Bryson

Johannesburg - Images of torture victims and police beating protesters along with the words of human rights activists are part of a new exhibit that Amnesty International hopes will inspire citizens across Africa to press their governments for action in Zimbabwe.

Albie Sachs, who fought white rule and now sits on post-apartheid South Africa's highest court, opened the exhibit on Tuesday, saying its strongest images weren't the most gruesome, often taken hurriedly by photographers who risked arrest for portraying Zimbabwe in a bad light.

Sachs pointed instead to formal portraits of Zimbabweans like lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa, renowned for her defense of opposition politicians, journalists and human rights campaigners, who joined him at the opening.

The portraits show "that spirit of what the people of the country can achieve despite all the difficulties," Sachs said.

Then he embraced Mtetwa, who said: "It's the first time I've been hugged by a judge."

Sachs responded: "If you can't hug a judge, become a judge."

Sachs's hug was awkward - his right arm was blown off in an apartheid-era car bomb explosion blamed on the white government's intelligence agencies.

Tuesday, he was a metaphor for transformation - hoped for or realised. So was the setting, a jail where Nelson Mandela and other anti-apartheid activists were once held that, after apartheid ended in 1994, became the headquarters of the highest tribunal, the Constitutional Court.

Exhibit to travel African countries

Over the next month, the Amnesty International exhibit titled "My Rights My Struggle" is scheduled to travel to countries including Tanzania, whose president currently chairs the African Union; and Botswana and Senegal, whose governments have been unusually critical of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, who is accused of trampling human rights and ruining his country's economy to stay in power.

Amnesty International urged visitors to the exhibit in Johannesburg to send post cards expressing their concern about Zimbabwe to South African President Thabo Mbeki, who is mediating power-sharing talks between Mugabe and his opposition.

Mbeki also is the current chair of the Southern African Development Community, which includes Zimbabwe and is the key regional bloc.

SADC has been diverted from its economic agenda by the political troubles in Zimbabwe.

The exhibit included a video and a short play by a Zimbabwean street theatre group that was to be performed daily, depicting Zimbabweans declaring their refusal "to live in constant fear".

The portraits were accompanied by taped testimonials, such as one from trade union activist Lucia Gladys Matibenga.

She described being beaten at a workers' rights rally in 2006. Her arm was broken and her ear drum ruptured.

"I would ask the whole world for just one minute to pray for Zimbabwe," Matibenga says. "To pray for a new Zimbabwe."

- AP