Crimes
Against Humanity Zimbabwe (CAHZ) - Home Page
Human rights in Zimbabwe
“
Crimes against humanity will only be deterred when their would-be perpetrators — be
they political
leaders, field commanders,, soldiers or policemen — are
given pause via the prospect that they will henceforth have no hiding
place.”
- Geoffrey Robertson QC, Human Rights Lawyer
Welcome to Crimes
Against Humanity Zimbabwe (CAHZ), the global repository for evidence
of torture, rape, ethnic cleaning, genocide and other
acts of violence committed in Zimbabwe since 1980. Our organisation
was set up 2005 at the Hague, capital city of the Netherlands, which
is also home to the World Court and the more recent International
Criminal Court which has special powers to try people accused of
genocide, torture
and other wrongs deemed to be an offence to all humankind. CAHZ (pronounced
Cause) is led by a small team of Zimbabwean
human-rights lawyers, and all information passed to us is treated
in confidence, unless
we have
specific permission to share the testimony on this website.
We encourage victims (we prefer to call them survivors) to share
their stories, because others who have suffered may be inspired to
come forward
with their own accounts.
The Problem
In 1980, following a seven-year civil war, Robert Gabriel Mugabe
was elected Prime Minister (and later President) and, almost from
the outset,
he began trampling human rights in the country. His Zimbabwe African
National Union — Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) was returned to power
in 2005 in an election widely condemned as fraudulent. It must be said
that Zimbabwe and, before 1980, Rhodesia, has never had a strong culture
of human rights and, during the civil war, torture and murder (killings
outside combat) were committed by government forces of Prime Minister
Ian Smith and, later Bishop Abel Muzorewa, and by the two rival guerilla
movements: Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANLA) loyal
to Mugabe and the Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA)
led by Joshua Nkomo.
Within two years of taking office, Mugabe had nationalised the press
and, from 1983 to 1987, his forces committed genocide[ATTROCITIES]
in the Southern province of Matabeleland against members of Nkomo’s
Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU).20 000 civilians are
reported to have been killed.
As resentment grew against rising unemployment and inflation now
at a world-record of more than 1200 per cent, calls increased for
Mugabe
to stand down but his government has responded with widespread acts
of torture, forced removals, political murder and rigged elections.
An estimated four million, or one-in-three Zimbabweans, now lives
in exile and latest figured from the United Nations (UN) suggest
that
three-quarters of the population is malnourished in a country that
once fed much of southern Africa. A recent land-redistribution exercise
saw more than 4000 mostly white farmers forced from their properties,
but the best farms went to Mugabe’s loyal aides and to his
family, and agricultural production has collapsed.