Zimbabwe far from a transition, still in a crisis – Human Rights Activists

A Zimbabwean human rights activist based in South Africa has said the country is not yet in a transitional stage but was still mired in a crisis.
Speaking at a public lecture organised as part of the Ideas Festival at a hotel in Bulawayo Lloyd Kuveya, a former magistrate and now legal practitioner with the Southern African Litigation Centre, said what was happening in the country was the designing of frameworks to allow for the beginning of the transition.
“Zimbabwe is not a country in transition but a country in crisis. Many people have said we have a transitional government, but what we are doing is to design frameworks to allow for the beginning of the transition.
“We still don’t have a constitution but are relying on a patched up document that does not accord all languages equality nor does it recognizes all regions similarly. There is a lot of uncertainty as to when we are going to have elections.
“We are not yet in transition. Transition is when the country has started on a new page. In the current scenario, you can’t even talk about the security sector reform without getting a backlash from the state. If you are in a transition you won’t set up an organ for national healing but an independent body that will open up to the participation of everybody including the civil society,” he said.
Kuveya said minority rights have, since independence, been trampled upon in Zimbabwe and still continue to be violated.
He cited the San people in Matabeleland North, the Tonga people in Matabeleland North, the Marange people in Manicaland, the Ndebele people in Matabeleland and parts of Midlands, white people, gays and prisoners as the minority people who have been violated by the state.
Abel Chikomo, executive director of the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum, concurred with Kuveya that Zimbabwe was still in a crisis.
“We are a country in crisis. In our country we tend to confuse the security of the state and the security of certain individuals or a certain party,” he said.
Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai in August said Zimbabwe was teetering on the brink of a major political crisis and warned that the country would slide into a scenario reminiscent of Ivory Coast if service chiefs failed to recognise any election winner other than President Robert Mugabe.
“The people of Zimbabwe are once again on the frontline in the war for freedom and rights and the fledgling democracy that was to grow following the signing of the new transitional government in 2009 is under threat. The struggle unfolding in Zimbabwe is one that pits good over evil, right against wrong and freedom against tyranny,” he said.