As Zimbabwe prepares to host the Southern African Development Community (SADC) summit in Harare next week, a chilling pattern of disappearances and human rights violations is unfolding, raising serious concerns about the government’s commitment to freedom and justice. Activists and opposition leaders are being targeted, with neither SADC nor Western countries seemingly willing to apply pressure on the government to address this alarming trend, The Africa Report has reported.
The latest incident involves the abduction of human rights campaigners Namatai Kwekweza, a recipient of the Kofi Annan NextGen Democracy Prize in 2023, and Robson Chere, of the Amalgamated Rural Teachers Union (ARTUZ), along with two other activists. The four were seized by state security agents on 31 July while en route to a civil society event in Victoria Falls. They were held for eight hours, during which time Chere sustained serious injuries, according to the Law Society of Zimbabwe (LSZ).
“We have engaged the lawyers representing the victims and they have confirmed the incident and that Chere was tortured while in Zimbabwe Republic Police custody,” reads part of the statement.
The four civil society members appeared in court on Friday facing charges of disorderly conduct. This incident is just the latest in a series of crackdowns on activists and opposition members by the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), aimed at silencing dissent and preventing planned protests during the SADC summit on 17 August.
This pattern of intimidation and suppression is not new to Zimbabwe. During the Robert Mugabe era, Western countries were vocal in their condemnation of human rights violations, rigged elections, and corruption. However, since the coup that brought Emmerson Mnangagwa to power, the UK and the EU have largely refrained from criticising the government’s actions.
These entities remained silent when Zimbabwe’s constitution was violated by illegal recalls of elected opposition MPs and councillors, and when 79 Citizens Coalition for Change party (CCC) supporters were arrested in June. They only sent out tweets on X when Kwekweza and the others were abducted.
This shift from vocal criticism to a muted acceptance has raised eyebrows. Gideon Chitanga, a research associate at the African Centre for the Study of the US at Wits University in Johannesburg, South Africa, believes this is not because the government has changed, but because Western countries are now pursuing a different strategy.
“Their interests do not necessarily lie singularly with supporting the opposition or trying to influence regime change like in the 2000s,” he tells The Africa Report.
“They are looking at opportunities to directly engage with the government for the simple reason that we are seeing a collapse of the opposition and a weakening of civil society,” he adds.
The US, however, has maintained its stance on corruption and human rights, as reiterated by their new ambassador, Pamela Tremont, in July 2023 in Harare. The US pulled out of the debt-restructuring process early this year citing the rigged election last year, while the UK did not.
Chitanga suggests that the EU and the UK’s responses to human rights violations in Zimbabwe are shaped by changing geopolitical conditions.
“We are seeing emerging economies becoming key power brokers. Western countries have fallen behind in terms of political influence, behind China specifically; Russia is also becoming influential,” he says, adding that they are navigating between gaining traction in the country and political leverage.
“They cannot put those interests in jeopardy by supporting weakened political institutions which do not suggest that they can affect any serious change,” he adds.
The EU and UK diplomats’ response to the human rights abuses in Zimbabwe has been muted compared to previous years, reflecting a shift in geopolitical priorities, says Daffield Chidochemoyo Sandengu, a political commentator.
“The EU and UK may be prioritising economic and strategic interests over human rights concerns. These Western countries may be experiencing diplomatic fatigue, having previously condemned human rights abuses without seeing significant improvements,” he says.
Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) reported the arrests of more than two dozen activists and opposition party supporters across the country, including Jacob Ngarivhume, the leader of the Transform Zimbabwe party, who was released in December, and Emmanuel Sitima, president of the Zimbabwean National Students Union, who was arrested on Friday in Harare.
Mnangagwa, ZANU-PF, and the police have vowed to use force to suppress any dissent during the regional summit. South Africa’s Democratic Alliance (DA), a party in a coalition government with ZANU-PF sympathisers African National Congress (ANC), is calling for the SADC summit to be moved to a different venue over human rights abuses by Harare.
However, given regional political dynamics, SADC is unlikely to be moved by the DA’s requests says Prolific Mataruse, a political science and international relations lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe.
“A history of SADC summit protests or counter meetings and state reactions shows that such expectations have not been granted,” he tells The Africa Report.
Chitanga agrees there is not going to be any change of strategy from SADC. “The perception from SADC is that Zimbabwe is relatively stable and if they are to discuss any isolated cases of human rights violations that would be just a formality,” he says.
“SADC does not engage with non-governmental organisations, it engages with state actors and outside that with opposition parties. And there is no single opposition in Zimbabwe that could engage legitimately with SADC as a representative of the people because the opposition has collapsed,” he adds.
The chairmanship of SADC rotates among the SADC countries and this year is Mnangagwa’s turn.
