Rampant Human Rights Violations in Zimbabwe Have Repercussions for the Region
November 14, 2006
Wall Street Journal, 'Yes, You Will Be Thoroughly Beaten'

In an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal the executive director of the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights and recipient of a Human Rights Watch award Arnold Tsunga describes the backsliding of freedom and standards of living in Zimbabwe under the presidency of Robert Mugabe.  Under a regime in which Tsunga himself has been tortured for speaking out against the government, life expectancy rates have fallen from 69 years of age to 35 between 2000 and 2006 under Mugabe. 

The AIDS pandemic has spread because of Mugabe’s reckless “Operation Clear the Filth” campaign against those in poverty that “represented a political threat.”  Mugabe has “created a system of terror for the majority and patronage for the elite few,” displacing over 700,000 people and causing Zimbabweans to seek refuge outside of their borders. 

The government continues to turn “to repressive and often violent means” against those who speak out against it.  The article quotes Mugabe openly admitting to torture, saying “yes, you will be thoroughly beaten,” in response to an outcry of the imprisonment and torture of 15 trade-union activists. 

Tsunga asserts that the human rights abuses in Zimbabwe have repercussions for not only the region but the rest of the world.  He says that South Africa and other countries in the region are being flooded with Zimbabweans fleeing the Mugabe regime in overwhelming numbers leading to possible instability in neighboring countries.  Tsunga goes on to claim that the lack of United States concerted “assistance and support,” has allowed China to fill the power vacuum “without any concerns for human rights or democracy.”  Tsunga’s Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights seeks to “rebuild a just, stable and democratic society that adheres to the rule of law,” a goal that will need western assistance to overcome the atrocities of the Mugabe regime, and external Chinese influence.