Article 4.1.2 - "Conducive environment for free, fair and peaceful elections"

The most frequently breached SADC standard on our ZEW database is the all-encompassing and vaguely named Article 4.1.2 - "Conducive environment for free, fair and peaceful elections". We have so far identified 69 events and incidents that constitute breaches of this standard. More questions arise:

• What does this mean?
• Who defines whether an environment is "conducive to free, fair and peaceful elections?
• Can
  an outside observer, someone not tuned into the nuances of a local
  environment, ever be a true and capable assessor of whether that
  environment is conducive to free, fair and peaceful elections?

Article 4.1.2 begins with Gukurahundi

Ordinary Zimbabweans will confirm it's impossible to have a free and fair election under the current conditions because of the history of terror instilled by the Mugabe regime. Our grassroots conclusion is derived from an intuitive and often personal assessment of the level of
fear, intimidation and reprisals in the country, one charted by cruel milestones ruthlessly stamped in the history by Robert Mugabe's government.

For many Zimbabweans, the shadow begins with the Gukurahundi (a
word that means "the early rain which washes away the chaff before the
spring rains"). This 1980s military operation, under the command of
Robert Mugabe, resulted in genocide in the Matabeleland region. An
estimated 10,000 to 30,000 people were killed, and an entire region
left with a scared psyche. The actions that characterised this period
involved mass murder; torture; mass beatings; homes being burned down
(sometimes after people had been packed into them); calculated
psychological torture designed to distress and terrorise; rape and
sexual abuse; and the deliberate withholding of food.

A child-abusing adult need do no more than raise a hand, an eyebrow, or
a voice, to remind a child that they hold the power, and can inflict
and create fear. The same is true for an oppressive regime. The
Gukurahundi canvas of terror forms a reference point, a backdrop, in
the hands of a government that rules through oppression. In this
context, the question of whether an environment is "conducive for free,
fair and peaceful elections", becomes a malleable concept, a tool to
control and limit the free will critical

Breaking the Silence

YouTube, Flickr, mobile phones and blogging, weren't even figments of
their developers' imaginations in the early 1980s. Instead, a report
titled 'Breaking the Silence', first published in 1997, attempted to
witness the experiences in Matabeleland, Zimbabwe. The report
unknowingly identified the reason why people in countries like ours
turn to tools like YouTube. The report said

"What those we have spoken to in Matabeleland want more
than anything else is lasting peace in Zimbabwe. They do not want a
witch hunt, just a chance to be heard" (p. 6)

But without the instant media phenomenon that has grown globally in
recent years, it took a long time for the victims in Matabeleland to be
heard:

"It is only by piecing together thousands of individual
testimonies that the full picture of events is beginning to emerge, 13
years later".

The report, republished this year as a book titled Gukurahundi in Zimbabwe, carries a forward by Elinor Sisulu where she says,

"Reading the report after all these years, I am amazed by my own ignorance about a period that I thought I knew"

The government has learned its craft - the tyranny continues

The fact is that the events of the Gukurahundi enjoy more publicity
now in 2007 among ordinary people both within and outside Zimbabwe,
than they did in 1997. This is because the actions of the Zanu PF
regime now, are repetitive echoes of the atrocities carried out then.
Blogging communities, media articles, and human rights reports, are all
drawing comparisons between then and now, making connections and
identifying patterns of behaviour and policy - all of this clearly
showing that the Zimbabwean government has in its hands a vicious tool,
one crafted specifically to hold democracy at bay.

None of the state sponsered criminals responsible for causing pain and
anguish - neither past nor present - have stood trial and been held
accountable for crimes against humanity. The canvas of terror remains
in Zimbabwe, unaltered by justice and freedom, but more details of
horror being painted on it daily.

In February 2000, two months before presidential elections, Robert
Mugabe lost a referendum that sought national approval to allow, among
other things, his government to seize white owned farms without paying
compensation. It also sought to secure conditions that made his
government and military officials immune from prosecution for any
illegal acts committed while in office. This successful result make
many Zimbabweans laugh that this was their first whiff of an experience
of democracy. Zanu PF, shocked by the result, responded by cracking
down hard.

Immediately after the referendum was lost war veterans invaded
commercial farms and violence ensued against both the farmers and the
workers: torture, beatings, murder, rape, the destruction of property.
Civilians were rounded up at machete and gun point, and forced to
attend all night 're-education' classes, where they had to chant songs
supporting the government until their throats were hoarse. Some would
be singled out for public beatings, simply to drive home the point that
the government was deeply serious and ruthless about them learning the
lesson they wanted to convey. The lesson was "when you vote, you vote
Zanu PF, or else". The tactics were a refrain echoing through the
years, traceable right back to the Gukurahundi.

Despite this, the swell of hope lit by the won referendum flickered
brightly and struggled to stay lit through successive elections in the
early 2000s, where time and time again the government employed tactics
to rig, control and steal votes - determined to win, no matter the cost
to the people, the economy, or the wildlife and environment.

In 2005 Zanu PF cruelty reached another peak, this time with Operation
Murambatsvina. Under Gukurahundi, the civilians of Zimbabwe were
referred to as 'chaff''; now the government named them 'trash'
(Murambatsvina literally translates to 'clear out the trash'). What can
only be described as a blitzkrieg swept the nation with homes and
livelihoods being targeted and viciously destroyed by the security
forces - an estimated 700,000 people were left employed and the United
Nations reports that as many 2.4 million people were affected
countrywide. The Zimbabwean Police Commissioner, Augustine Chihuri, said that Operation Murambatsvina was meant to "clean the country of the crawling mass of maggots bent on destroying the economy".

Article 4.1.2 in the run-up to the 2008 elections

This is the backdrop to Article 4.1.2 of the "SADC Principles and
Guidelines Governing Democratic Elections". It's hard, even at this
stage, to imagine how anyone could consider that Article 4.1.2
"Conducive environment for free, fair and peaceful elections", can ever
be considered to be 'unbreached'.

But our Zimbabwe Election Watch project doesn't provide our data
loggers with the option to declare this article breached as a result of
'crimes against humanity and no justice for the perpetrators'. Instead,
we monitor the individual events occurring on a day to day basis in
Zimbabwe.

It's a difficult and sometimes infuriating task. For example, consider the experience of Mrs Elizabeth Tauro
on the 26th September. Mrs Tauro had constructed eight cottages on her
plot to accommodate some of the victims of the 2005 Operation
Murambatsvina. Her political position as MDC Chairlady for Headlands
Ward made her a target for government aggression; she has always been
accused of holding 'political meetings' at her plot with the occupants
of the cottages (in Zimbabwe, people cannot hold a political meeting
unless they have first sought police approval - seldom granted to the
opposition or human rights activists). On the night of the 26th, a fire
was started that destroyed all the homes. It was allegedly started by
the Zanu PF Ward chairperson in the area. Families that had previously
had shelter, were reduced overnight to sleeping in the opne without
shelter or blankets.

This is clearly a breach of SADC standards, but which boxes - SADC
standards - on the database are available to check? How do we flag to
observers and the world that these sort of atrocities are going on, and
that their accumulated impact against a backdrop of historical
oppression is resulting in an environment fraught with tension and
oppression. One that is non-conducive to free and fair elections.

Our options are limited by the SADC guidelines. No one can dispute that
that this sort of action would send a ripple of revulsion throughout
the community, so the first breach is obviously Article 4.1.2 - "Conducive environment for free, fair and peaceful elections". We look for more, and find Article 4.1.1 - "Constitutional and legal guarantees of freedom and rights of citizens"; and Article 7.4, the one that demands that States "Safeguard the human and civil liberties of all citizens".

But it isn't enough. Where the articles that clearly state that it is
utterly unacceptable to destroy a person's livelihood and home, and
then, when a Samaritan steps up and helps out, to destroy their new
home all over again? How can those of us monitoring these elections,
circulating this information to the world, approach Mrs Tauro and all
the people living alongside her and say, "Don't worry. The world is
watching. We have alerted them that Article 4.1.2 has been breached yet
again". What do these words mean to ther victims of crimes like these
right now; and how can they be persuaded that these SADC standards have
any meaning for their future?

Is the world watching? Does it understand the full enormity of Article
4.1.2? Or is the world fooled by the benign innocuous phrase, not
realising that it is a standard that records murder (where is the box to check alongside that?); the deliberate control of food (genocide again?); political violence; corruption; government hit lists of critics the government has decided to kill - yes, a murder hit list; people brutalised and arrested for no reason; electoral rigging; laws to authorise spying on the people; Murambatsvina re-visited; mothers separated from their babies so the police can beat them with impunity; and 'angels' in the security force, desperately trying to do their job in the spirit of the law, demoted as punishment for doing so.

We are heading towards elections in 2008 and Article 4.1.2 is by far
the most checked breach of our SADC checklist. We hope, for the sake of
the many invisible victims of this environment that is non-conducive to
free and fair elections, that the public can look past the innocuous
phrase and see these breaches for what they really are: violence;
oppression; the continuous violation of human rights. They represent a
complete lack of freedom, and a total disregard for human rights.