US embassy cable - 04HARARE220

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 HARARE 000220 
 
SIPDIS 
 
AF/S FOR SDELISI, LAROIAN, MRAYNOR 
NSC FOR SENIOR AFRICA DIRECTOR JFRAZER, DTEITELBAUM 
LONDON FOR CGURNEY 
PARIS FOR CNEARY 
NAIROBI FOR TPFLAUMER 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/05/2009 
TAGS: PHUM, PGOV, SOCI, ZI 
SUBJECT: NCA MARCH VIOLENTLY SUPPRESSED; LEADER BEATEN 
 
REF: 03 HARARE 2100 
 
Classified By: Political Officer Win Dayton under Section 1.5(b)(d) 
 
1.  (SBU) SUMMARY: Police on February 4 quickly and violently 
dispersed an early afternoon demonstration organized by the 
National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) in support of a new 
constitution.   According to a local human rights lawyer, 
police arrested 118 protesters and beat up about 50.  At 
least one was reported to be unconscious and still in the 
hospital on February 5.  Embassy has e-mailed to the 
Department a list furnished by the Zimbabwe Human Rights 
Lawyers Association of 34 individuals beaten and injured by 
police.  An NCA representative claimed that the demonstration 
drew participants from Bulawayo and Mutare and numbered 2500 
but bystanders estimated the crowd at 100-150.  The 
representative advised that the organization had not applied 
for a permit for the event.  END SUMMARY. 
 
2.  (SBU) The human rights lawyer told the Embassy that those 
arrested were being charged under the Miscellaneous Offenses 
Act, not the Public Order and Security Act (POSA).  He said 
that a senior official of the police's Law and Order Unit 
(which is charged with enforcing POSA) had refused at the 
station to book them under POSA, insisting instead that other 
police charge them under the lesser offense.  According to 
the lawyer, the official had said he "was tired" of dealing 
with demonstrators and that POSA bookings were a "waste of 
time."  (Comment: Historically, POSA has been used as a 
pretext to arrest and detain regime opponents briefly but not 
to convict or imprison them for any length of time. End 
comment.)  The lawyer expected all those detained to be 
released on February 5 or 6, perhaps after paying nominal 
fines. 
 
3.  (SBU) Beaten but not arrested was NCA President Lovemore 
Madhuku, who was taken from the scene of the protest and 
beaten severely by police before being dumped, bleeding and 
semi-conscious, on a roadside on the edge of town.  Retrieved 
later in the day by supporters, he refused to seek admission 
to hospital out of fear that authorities would come after him 
again, according to the lawyer.  His injuries included 
bruises all over his body, a deep cut on his head, and chest 
pains.  Madhuku told a foreign diplomat February 5 that the 
police beating him had said that they would have to 
"eliminate" him at some stage, but then backed off and were 
helping him to staunch his bleeding before they dumped him 
out of their truck.  He told the diplomat that he planned to 
go back to work on February 6. 
 
4.  (C) COMMENT: Keeping to form, the GOZ has responded to a 
non-violent opposition event with just enough brutal but 
non-lethal force to disperse the event quickly and to project 
a deterrent message.  The Law and Order Unit's reported lack 
of enthusiasm suggests an ambivalence among many police 
toward Zimbabwe's frequent but modest efforts at civil 
disobedience.  Indeed, much of Zimbabwe's protest activity 
has become ritualized, with protesters and police becoming so 
familiar with their roles and with each other that they joke 
among themselves on the margins of many events and at the 
police station.  Such ambivalence and chumminess, however, 
alarms the heavily politicized higher police echelons, who 
reportedly are responding with personnel moves to politicize 
the department's mid-ranks more deeply in an effort to assure 
a more disciplined reaction to opposition activities. 
Concerns for police discipline and capacity also fuel the 
GOZ's reportedly increasing reliance on the military and the 
youth militia to suppress opposition activities, including 
political campaigning. 
 
5.  (C) COMMENT (CONT'D): The NCA continues to be one of the 
more confrontational of Zimbabwe's numerous non-violent 
politically oriented NGOs.  Some of the opposition MDC 
party's principals are former principals of the NCA, and the 
NCA made a strong solidarity statement at December's MDC 
party conference.  The NCA nonetheless openly opposes any 
constitutional talks between the MDC and ZANU-PF and 
self-consciously distances itself from the MDC at times.  The 
iconoclastic constitutional scholar Madhuku, who has been 
arrested ten times for acts of civil disobedience, can be 
counted on to continue his public campaign for a new 
"people's" constitution with varying degrees of coordination 
with the MDC.  For its part, the MDC is comfortable with 
having the NCA and civil society bear the brunt of the GOZ's 
brutal intolerance as it continues to evaluate the 
environment for a party-engineered mass action. 
SULLIVAN