Prison documentary exposes state excesses

They predictably will be punished, but not the prison officials responsible for such cruelty and barbarism that shocked television viewers.
The condition of the skeletal and visibly ill prisoners who featured in the expose titled “Hell Hole” shocked viewers in South Africa and beyond. Surely, this cannot happen in any country in the 21st Century.
The prisoners looked like inmates of Hitler’s concentration camps or Stalin’s gulags. How could a government in this day and age permit people under its care to be treated so sadistically?
The organisation, Zimbabwe Democracy Now, ran advertisements in some South African newspapers this week calling for the resignation of Zimbabwe Prison Services Commissioner Paradzai Zimondi and his two deputies.
In any civilised country, heads would roll. But Zimbabwe no longer meets the standard of a civilised country. As usual, it is those who had the temerity to blow the whistle that will be punished.
They embarrassed the government by exposing its true nature. For that the three warders will be made an example of while those responsible for the despicable conditions in Zimbabwe’s prisons will most probably be promoted.
One of the worst legacies of the ZANU-PF government’s reign will be the manner in which it extended the brutality of the regime to segments of society by enlisting young people to perpetrate all sorts of violent crimes.
Since the formation of the Border Gezi militias about seven years ago, between 10 and 15 000 young people have been turned into robotic torturers, rapists and murderers.
Crude propaganda and substance abuse have combined to turn these youths into callous merchants of violence.
They do so fortified by knowledge that a blanket immunity protects them. Monthly stipends from the state, which are still being disbursed despite the alleged dawn of a new political era, only serve as an added incentive to do anything ordered by those calling the shots.
A culture of violence and impunity has taken root in Zimbabwe especially in the past nine years. Its seeds were, however, sown soon after independence.
Right from the onset, the ZANU-PF government responded with violent brutality to any real or perceived political threat.
Gukurahundi in the 1980s must be seen within this context. In 2000, perpetrators of violence were expanded to include those not in the formal employ of the state.
At first war veterans were at the forefront to give legitimacy to land invasions and attendant violence. Soon afterwards, as the threat posed by the MDC refused to go away, the militia was formed to add numbers and youthful energy to the regime’s campaign of violence. It is important to point out that neither the war veterans nor youth militia could have been effective without the logistical, material and financial support given by the army, police and CIO. The brutalisation of the Zimbabwean society was well underway.
Any respectable country must be built on a foundation of decent values and morality. As the violence in Zimbabwe became increasingly institutionalised, it became acceptable to loot, maim, murder and drive people from their homes.
Through crude propaganda and self-interest, a belief took root that violence against enemies of ZANU-PF was legitimate and justifiable because the party liberated Zimbabwe and was the sole custodian of the interests of its people.
Violence against Ndebeles was justified in the name of defending the revolution. So was violence against white farmers seen as the continuation of the struggle for land.
Members of the MDC were fair game because they were stooges of the British and their kith and kin in Zimbabwe. The list of fair targets grew as the threat against the regime stubbornly persisted. It is a measure of how total the impunity is for those who act in the name of the regime that no one from Gukurahundi to the violence that still continues today, has been arrested and prosecuted.
There are those who will read this and say it is improper to bring this issue up at a time when an inclusive government is trying to heal and reconcile the nation. The answer is simple: If, as is the case, all the crimes committed in the past are swept under the carpet for the comfort and convenience of politicians, nothing will be achieved.
If there is no justice, acknowledgement and compensation for victims, Zimbabwe will not move forward in a meaningful and sustainable way. These past crimes will recur. Putting a plain bandage over a festering wound never heals it.
The brutal excesses of the ZANU-PF era must be officially acknowledged and all forms of redress effected for the poison of the past not to infect a new body politic.
The regime also knew that as long as victims of its terror were poor blacks in rural areas and townships, the world would not go beyond the symbolic gestures of disapproval. No action would be taken to imperil the very existence of the regime.
No one would be brought to justice. It is no coincidence that at the height of land invasions in 2000,of the thousands of white families on farms throughout the country, only nine were murdered.
Blacks were killed in their hundreds. Such an alarming rate among whites would have provoked serious consequences for the regime’s leaders. It is sickening hypocrisy on the part of those who claim to act in the name of black Africans.
All these crimes against people over an extended period take a huge toll on the character of a nation. The humanity of perpetrators is destroyed. They operate in a moral vacuum. Nothing is sacred anymore including the lives of people. No principle is beyond sacrifice.
A culture of lust for power and greed takes over. A deep sense of entitlement lies at the centre of their thoughts and deeds. The nation loses its moral compass.
Leaders become heartless and totally oblivious to the masses’ suffering and squalor. A sense of self-righteousness and invincibility makes it impossible for them to distinguish right from wrong. Fearful and cowed the populace largely submits to this savagery.
It is this environment that makes it possible for prisoners to be allowed to needlessly die of malnutrition, hunger and disease. It is such a system that allows prisoners to live in conditions of disgusting filth in which human excrement is all over the place.
Only people who have lost their humanity can let prisoners live with dead bodies in their cells until they begin to decompose and emit an unbearably foul smell.
If a system does not care about an old lady in the rural areas who has her son murdered and home torched for supporting the opposition, how can it give a toss for prisoners?
The three warders will pay a heavy price for their bravery, patriotism and humanity. They must have known the risk they were taking, but decided to do the right thing by exposing this outrage. For that, all decent people are thankful. Their efforts may well lead to far-reaching prison reforms in the not-too-distant future.