Journey to meet United States president

However, the unthinkable happened last month, when the first US black president, Barack Obama, handed her a human rights award for her work with a local pressure group Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) which advocates for women’s rights not to be trampled upon.
The journey to meet Obama was not smooth sailing. It involved running battles with State agents and being incarcerated at some of the country’s most dingy jails that include Chikurubi in Harare and Mlondolozi in Bu-lawayo.
At Mlondolozi, she thought she had reached a point of no return  after being thrown into the same cell with a mentally-ill inmate who had been moved from a psychiatric hospital where she had committed murder.
“In Zulu or Ndebele mlondolozi is supposed to be a place of nurturing or grooming, but unfortunately it is not. I have been there believe me.” Mahlangu told The Financial Gazette on Monday ahead of next week’s World Human Rights day that is observed every year on December 10.
“I am lucky that I survived. It was a nasty experience and my arrest was unjust. The constitution guarantees freedom of expression, but we were arrested while marching peacefully to say we are not going to keep silent about the violence in the run-up to the presidential run-off.”
Last year, President Robert Mugabe won a one man race in a presidential run-off against the leader of the mainstream Movement for Democratic Change (MDC-T) Morgan Tsvangirai who pulled out citing violence against his supporters.
Mahlangu said when the Global Political Agreement (GPA) was signed last year; its contents gave hope regarding the improvement of human rights situation in Zimbabwe, but unfortunately that has not been the case although a certain level of peace has been achieved.
“Some people are being denied the right to earn a living even with the formation of the inclusive government. If you go into the street right now vendors are being harassed and in some cases the municipal police loot the goods for their personal use. I strongly feel that every one has a right to earn a living,” Mahlangu said.
The human rights activist’s observations that the inclusive government has failed to free itself from the taint of human rights violations is also captured in a Zimbabwe Peace Project (ZPP) report released  last Friday that said October and September saw the resurgence of violence as impunity persists.
The rights violations were mainly precipitated by the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC-T) disengagement from government during that period.
Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s led (MDC-T) party only resumed cooperation with ZANU-PF after immense pressure from regional leaders to stop playing games with people’s lives.
As a result of the culture of impunity and violence, normal disagreements assumed political connotations.
ZPP said in two months 3 918 cases of rights violations had been reported while from January there had been 12 824.
“Most of the violations committed in communities derive their inspiration from the conduct of political business at macro level. In the period under review (Sep-tember/October), members of the public were victimised for commenting on macro level issues such as the MDC-T’s disengagement, arrest of Senator Roy Bennett and changes brought about by the inclusive government. When macro politics tensed up members of the public in both urban and rural became highly protective of their political turf and even quick to resort to violence even at the slightest provocation…ordinary disagreements quickly assumed political connotations,” the report said.
“Scrutiny of the sp-ecifics of most issues reported suggests the need to refocus human rights monitoring strategies as perpetrators have become more adept and cunning and quick to frame their political targets by falsely accusing them of having committed criminal acts such as cattle rustling.
“Cases abound where well known victims of the June 27 elections had tables turned by being accused as perpetrators.”
It added that as an example, victims of last year’s violence in Mutoko’s Chimoi area recently appeared at Mutoko Magistrates Court accused of robbery.
In a recent report Human Rights Watch said although government had set up an organ on National Healing, Reconciliation and Integration nothing concrete had been done to promote unity as the culture of impunity continues as a result of lack of accountability for human rights violations; delays in implementing institutional reforms and failure to undertake legislative reforms.
It said the organ led by Ministers John Nkomo and Sekai Holland as well as consultant Gibson Sibanda had done more talking than action.
The rights watchdog added that there have been no investigations against state security agents or ZANU-PF members who were implicated by the United Nations Country Team in last year’s violence.
“However, as noted by the examples above, the language of healing has not been matched by the government actions. Impunity remains the major problem in Zimbabwe. The power-sharing government has not taken any steps to investigate allegations of human rights violations by the police, army, other State agents, or ZANU-PF and its allies either before the formation of the new government…or to bring abusers to justice. Without justice or accountability for past abuses, Zimbabwe’s long-standing problem of impunity will persist and national healing in the long run will remain elusive,” the watchdog said.