Zimbabwe’s Human Rights Record Under Scrutiny

October 13, 2011

AIDS-Free World remains deeply concerned about the brutal rape campaign perpetrated during Zimbabwe’s 2008 presidential elections, as well as the likelihood that the violence will recur when the country returns to the polls next year.  President Robert Mugabe – who unleashed mobs of his ZANU-PF party’s youth militias to rape, torture, and kill opposition party members – has publicly stated that the next presidential elections will be held no later than March 2012.¹  Reports of politically motivated violence within the country continue, and there is no indication that ZANU-PF has dismantled its youth militias or the country-wide base camps used to torture and rape their opponents.  The campaign of rape that already took place in Zimbabwe was both widespread and systematic and constitutes crimes against humanity under international law.  No one has been held accountable for these crimes. 

As part of our ongoing efforts to push the international community to prevent another rape campaign, AIDS-Free World again contacted all of the UN Member State missions in Geneva, in advance of Zimbabwe’s Universal Periodic Review before the UN Human Rights Council. The Universal Periodic Review is a relatively new mechanism of the United Nations during which the UN Member States publicly review the human rights practices of every country in the world.  Each country is up for review every four years, and during a review they receive questions and recommendations from other Members States.² It is a significant tool because it forces a very public, international examination of human rights practices, even in reticent countries, and it provides human rights activists with public statements and commitments from their individual countries, which may then be used to hold feet to the fire and strengthen NGO advocacy.

AIDS-Free World sent a letter to the missions of all 192 Member States with a copy of our Zimbabwe report, Electing To Rape, as well as suggested questions for the government, and recommendations to insist that Zimbabwe both redress past and refrain from future campaigns of rape.  We were pleased that Austria, Canada, and New Zealand specifically mentioned the widespread rape and sexual violence that took place in 2008, which has been largely ignored in many human rights reports that catalogue the other horrors of Zimbabwe’s political violence.  Canada’s first recommendation to Zimbabwe was to “undertake impartial, independent, and comprehensive investigations into the 2008 election-related violence, including cases of rape, with protection for witnesses, survivors and their families, and to prosecute the alleged perpetrators.”  Austria also expressed concerns about impunity, particularly for crimes committed by law enforcement, and asked Zimbabwe to describe what measures had been taken to address “alleged summary executions, torture and sexual violence during the elections in June/July 2008 and to hold the perpetrators accountable.”  New Zealand noted that there has thus far been “no adequate investigation or accountability for abuses that occurred at the time of the 2008 election, including violence against women and rape.”

A total of thirteen countries specifically addressed the general politically motivated violence that occurred in 2008, including Zimbabwe’s neighbor South Africa, which recommended that all credible allegations from elections be investigated.  In addition, a large number of countries pressed Zimbabwe to ratify the Convention Against Torture, and to issue standing invitations to all UN Special Procedures mandate-holders, a list that includes the Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women and the Special Rapporteur on Torture. 

AIDS-Free World will continue to use all of the legal and human rights mechanisms at our disposal to spur the international community to action and to prevent a repeat of 2008’s horrifying raping and brutality.  We have had three meetings with the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to share our evidence and ongoing concern, and AIDS-Free World Co-Directors met with a group of concerned UN Ambassadors in July.  AIDS-Free World is using our legal dossier, containing testimony from rape survivors throughout Zimbabwe, to pursue legal avenues to prosecute the crimes against humanity that occurred, and we have forwarded our findings to the Office of the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court.  To read the report that helped inform governments in advance of this week’s Universal Periodic Review of Zimbabwe, please see Electing to Rape: Sexual Terror in Mugabe's Zimbabwe.