Wholl save us from our protectors?

last updated 8 January 2015

Zimbabwe

Joram Nyathi

We are a “terrorized population,” said Joram Nyathi in Harare’s Zimbabwe Independent. Zimbabwe has “a vengeful police force so emboldened by a culture of impunity that they can break people’s skulls in broad daylight without any fear of prosecution.” Instead of being disciplined, they are rewarded. Last month, police threw 15 labor union leaders in prison and beat them with truncheons. A few hours later, the union leaders limped, bleeding, out of the station with broken arms and ribs and burst eardrums, and showed their injuries to the press. That incident produced appalled headlines around the world, but President Robert Mugabe refused to see anything wrong in the officers’ behavior. “Some people are now crying foul that they were assaulted,” he mocked. “Yes, you get a beating! When the police say move, move. If you don’t move, you invite the police to use force.” When the president of the country “extols the virtues of police savagery,” citizens have nowhere to turn. “Zimbabweans must be afraid, very afraid indeed. Mugabe has just opened for us the gates of hell.”