BEATRICE MTETWA . . . lead lawyer on Mukoko's case

HARARE – Unknown men abducted two more Zimbabwean human rights workers on Monday, while no judge was available at the Harare High Court to hear the case of prominent rights activist Jestina Mukoko kidnapped five days ago. 

Lawyers working on the abductions also reported the kidnapping at the weekend of a brother of a leading rights lawyer in the southern city of Masvingo, in a worrying spike in abductions that rights groups in Harare and Amnesty International blame on President Robert Mugabe’s government.

The two rights workers, Broderick Takawira and Pascal Gonzo, kidnapped on Monday morning work for the Zimbabwe Peace Project (ZPP), the same group for which Mukoko is national director.

Armed men who claimed to be police abducted Mukoko last Wednesday. She has not been seen or heard from since then, while police deny arresting her.

ZPP chairman Alois Chaumba said that the rights group reported the latest kidnapping of its two workers to Mount Pleasant station in Harare but the police had apparently not made any leads into the case by close of business on Monday.

A police officer at Mount Pleasant police station, who did not give his name or rank, told ZimOnline by phone: “There is a report about the missing Gonzo and Takawira but they have not been found. The report was made today (Monday).”

According to Chaumba a group of about six men driving an unmarked car came up to the ZPP offices in Harare early in the morning on Monday and asked to see Takawaira, the rights group’s coordinator for Harare province and Gonzo who is a driver.

The men took the ZPP workers without saying where exactly they were taking them.

Chaumba said: “We are still in a state of shock over the tragedy that happened this morning. They picked Broderick Takawira and Pascal Gonzo. We reported the matter to the Mount Pleasant station but we have heard nothing from them yet.”

The kidnapping of the ZPP workers took place as reports surfaced in Harare of the abduction of Zacharia Nkomo, a brother to one of the leading human rights lawyers in Zimbabwe, Harrison Nkomo.

Details of Zacharia’s kidnapping were still sketchy but it is believed unknown men abducted him in the city of Masvingo over the weekend.

And lawyers working on the case of Mukoko’s disappearance said the matter filed last week, as an urgent application was not heard on Monday because there was no judge allocated to hear the matter.

One of the lawyers working on the Mukoko case, Otto Saki, said: “We have not been allocated a judge today, they said the Judge President (Rita Makarau) was not in the office, so we had no one to make a follow up on. We hope to be lucky on Tuesday.”

The lawyers want the High Court to order the police to release Mukoko or, if they are not the ones holding her, to investigate her abduction.

Lead lawyer on the case, Beatrice Mtetwa, told ZimOnline last Friday that some judges she did not name had declined to hear the matter because they felt it was “too hot” to handle.

Mukoko, a former staffer at the state-owned Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation before joining the ZPP, was abducted in the early morning hours on Wednesday from her home in Norton town, 50km west of Harare.

Under Mukoko’s leadership, the ZPP has played a crucial role in monitoring and documenting politically motivated violence in Zimbabwe, building an archive of evidence that could be crucial in prosecuting perpetrators of human rights abuses in the future.

Political analysts and human rights groups say Mugabe’s government has in recent months stepped up repression against human rights defenders and other representatives of civil society in Zimbabwe to try to intimidate them from recording or publicising cases of rights violations.

Police and secret agents have on numerous occasions in the past been accused of holding arrested human rights activists, political activists, and other government critics incommunicado for long periods during which they sometimes beat or torture their captives in a bid to break them.

The latest kidnappings come as pressure mounted against Mugabe with the European Union, United States, Kenya and Botswana all calling on the Zimbabwean leader to step down.

“I say today that President Mugabe must go. Zimbabwe has suffered enough," The European Union and French President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Monday.

But political analysts said in the absence of a more forceful diplomatic intervention by his African peers, Mugabe was likely to remain defiant against Western-led criticism and opposition to his rule. – ZimOnline