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Mugabe 'weeding out dissidents'
17/02/2004 23:37 - (SA)
Harare - Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe has given himself powers of detention that allow his police to hold opponents of his regime in prison for up a month without legal process on charges of "subversion," the opposition Movement for Democratic Change said on Tuesday.
The state-owned press reported at the weekend reported that sweeping presidential powers wielded by Mugabe banned judges or magistrates from giving bail to suspects, but only in cases of money-laundering, fraud and illegal foreign currency and gold trading.
However, scrutiny of the decree revealed that the law also applied to a wide range of offences under the Public Order and Security Act (POSA), including "attempting to coerce" the government through boycotts, strikes, civil disobedience or "resistance to the law," said MDC secretary for legal affairs David Coltart.
He accused Mugabe of making "a silent declaration of a state of emergency."
The laws allow police to keep suspects in prison for a week without having to produce prima facie evidence. If the state is then able to produce evidence, the suspects can be held for another three weeks.
"These regulations are nothing less than a Trojan horse which effectively usher in provisions that give the regime state of emergency powers without actually declaring a state of emergency," Coltart said.
POSA was used last year to arrest most of the MDC's leadership. None have been brought to trial. 'Rehash of apartheid'
MDC secretary-general Welshman Ncube said Mugabe's decree was "a rehash" of 30 day detention laws used by South Africa's apartheid regime and the former Rhodesian government. Mugabe continued to use them after independence in 1980, during the massacres by his security forces of about 20 000 people in Matabeleland.
Human rights studies in the two countries say tens of thousands of people were tortured, assaulted and murdered under detention laws. Mugabe himself spent 10 years in detention under former Rhodesian prime minister Ian Smith.
The first victim of Mugabe's decree was ruling party central committee member and tycoon James Makamba, charged with dealing illegally in foreign currency, the latest in a string of arrests since January in what the state media describes as an "anti-corruption drive." Dissidents
However, the crackdown is seen by some as a mask for the removal of dissidents within the ruling party. "Corruption is endemic in Zanu(PF)" said Coltart, citing a sequence of bribery, fraud and embezzlement scandals since soon after independence, none of which have produced a single prosecution.
"When we see similar members of Zanu(PF) arrested, including close relatives of Robert Mugabe, we will know they are serious about corruption," he said.
Ncube said the recent arrests of party officials was to "make examples of them" on the pretence of dealing with corruption.
- SAPA
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