Twitter Space: Zimbabwe's Human Rights Crisis and the SADC Summit

Aug 12

Wednesday, 14 August 2024

12pm Washington D.C.
5pm Dakar
6pm Paris / Cape Town
7pm Nairobi / Cairo

Join our live Twitter/X Space

On 17 August, the 44th SADC Summit of Heads of State and Government will take place in Zimbabwe under the theme: “Promoting innovation to unlock opportunities for sustained economic growth and development.” The lofty framing of this high-level gathering is at complete odds with recent developments in the host nation. This includes the arrests on June 16 – and the alleged torture and beatings by police sustained thereafter – of several prominent human rights defenders who were forcefully removed from their plane before traveling to a civil society conference. In total, 18 activists were unjustly detained by Zimbabwean authorities, according to local lawyers. Among those detained is a former speaker on The Resistance Bureau, Namatai Kwekweza, a 25-year-old pro-democracy campaigner and the inaugural winner of the 2023 Kofi Annan NextGen Democracy Prize.

In a similar episode on June 16, 77 opposition party activists – who were peacefully gathered at a private residence to commemorate the International Day of the African Child – were arrested on charges of assembling with the intent to ‘promote violence.’ This included a young mother and her 1-year-old baby. Ultimately, the entire group was held in custody for more than 48 hours without appearing before a competent court, in clear violation of Zimbabwean law; to date, many of them remain detained in pre-trial detention.

These latest violations of constitutional rights in Zimbabwe, perpetrated with impunity by authorities, has become the norm in Zimbabwe under the leadership of President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who has ruled the country with an iron fist following a November 2017 military coup and a highly flawed election in 2023. In a region in which democracy has grown and even flourished in several countries, Zimbabwe, in many respects, remains a disturbing outlier.

Given the dire and deteriorating human rights situation in Zimbabwe, the upcoming SADC Summit and the impending SADC chairmanship of President Mnangagwa bring into question the extent to which SADC, under his leadership, can uphold its commitment to human rights and address problematic behaviors by its member states. This situation also raises critical questions about how the issues in Zimbabwe reflect on the regional agenda and integrity of SADC, and why Africa’s regional bodies – including the African Union – often fail to uphold the human rights and freedoms outlined in their respective charters.

On 14 August – at 6PM Zimbabwe time, 12PM ET – we will endeavor to unpack these thorny, highly important issues with a panel of Zimbabwean and regional experts who have both lived through these challenging experiences and who continue to strive for needed reforms. Join us!