Chinamasa says SABC documentary false
April 3, 2009
Justice Minister Chinamasa says these prisoners are not Zimbabweans.
By Our Correspondent
HARARE – Zimbabwe’s Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa has dismissed as false an SABC TV3 Special Assignment documentary which aired horrifying footage exposing how prisons in the country have become death camps for thousands of inmates who are deprived of food and medical care.
The documentary, shown on Tuesday’s night on South Africa’s state broadcaster SABC3, documented the “living hell” for prisoners at Beitbridge, Khami and Chikurubi Maximum prisons.
In an interview with RadioVOP on Wednesday, Chinamasa said the documentary, which shocked most Zimbabweans due to its horrifying pictures of gravely ill inmates, accused the SABC team of fabricating the story.
“What was shown by the SABC3 is not true,” Chinamasa told RadioVOP. “The SABC is lying. We do not allow cameras into our prisons. We have made investigations and found out that the footage is not from Zimbabwean but other countries.”
“The pictures shown are not from Zimbabwe prisons but elsewhere in Africa and these are being attributed to us. We know our prisons are facing challenges but that documentary was false. Also it is unethical for the SABC to show such pictures of foreign prisoners and attribute them to Zimbabwe. I want to re-state that no-one is allowed inside our prisons with cameras,” he said.
But the SABC team said the film, made by SABC’s Special Assignment programme, was shot over three months with cameras smuggled into the prisons.
The film showed how prison staff have converted cells and storage rooms to “hospital wards” for the dying and makeshift mortuaries, where bodies “rot on the floors with maggots moving all around”.
In October last year the Zimbabwe Association for Crime Prevention and Rehabilitation of the Offender (ZACRO) released a report indicating that there were 55 prisons in Zimbabwe, with a capacity to hold 17 000 inmates. But in October 2008 it was estimated that more than 35 000 people were in jail.
Efforts to get SABC to respond to Chinamasa’s serious allegation were not successful, but will continue.
There was a blitz on the documentary in the media, including on the Zimbabwe Times, where a segment of the documentary was uploaded. It features several emaciated prisoners. None of them speaks to the camera, however. Two South African human rights activists and Zimbabwe’s Deputy Minister of Agriculture Roy Bennett are interviewed instead.
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Shame on you Chinamasa. This story is no April Fools Joke. This case is enough to condemn Zanu Pf to crimes against humanity. The majority of these so called ‘prisoners’ are alleged MDC suppoorters; no wonder why you have no heart.
But let’s remind you comrade – these people are Zimbabweans; your own brothers and sisters who were trying to voice their disatification with the way they were being governed by Zanu PF . Patrick, you will be judged one day (sooner) for your evil deeds. You are not indespensible; you are not a super human being.
Judgement day is nigh.
You are a disgrace in today’s society. I wonder if you have children. If so, think about your legacy to them. This ‘Prisoners’ issue will cast a dark cloud upon the promising inclusive goverment. Please grow up like your white hair and learn to accept defeat.
Why do radio stations, journalists, etc bother with people like Chinamasa. Anyone could have told us he was going to deny the authenticity of the video.
What should happen now is for Chinamasa to do a publicity round of the prisons with journos in tow. Let him prove the inhumane conditions don’t exist. Oh wait, that’s right, that would be shooting himself in the foot.
I think these pictures are from elsewhere in Africa. These people are too skinny even by Zimbabwean standards. I declare these are FAKES..
Backward Chinamasa doesn’t know that cameras with technoligical advancement can be concealed and smuggled. Cameras have gotten so small in this day and age Mr. Minister unlike the one at ZTV. The are at it again denying evidence as always. Thank you SABC3 for exposing the conditions in the prisons. Roy Bennett can confirm and already has. The Prime Minister’s office must do its own investigations on this and if the documentary is true then the Minister of Justice should be releaved of his duties. Mr. Editor, have you contacted the office of the PM with regard to this? Is it possible to get his comments and his position apart from Chinamasa? There is also the issue of Clever Kunonga, the Lands Officer caught on video in the act when he led a group of invaders to Kevin Dudoil’s Reydon Farm (on Friday March 27, 2009)for an invassion days after the PM made a statement that under the GNU the invassions must stop or perpetrators face the law…what steps are going to be taken against Kunonga because the we are going to hold the PM against his own words.
When did Chinamasa last officially visit Zimbabwean prisons and see the situation on the ground for himself? Many do not remember such a blessed occasion. I do not know what then warrants him to issue this denial without having even instituted a board of inquiry. This is the kind of politics that we are fighting against.
What Chinamasa is doing is simply making his boss Mugabe happy (Remember “victory over cholera speech by Mugabe”) and does not care what the people will say or are saying. He is not answerable to the people but only to himself and his master Mugabe, so he can afford to talk such rubbish and get away with it. We are the people who have relatives (be they criminals or not) who are languishing in these “hell-holes”, none of Chinamasa’s relatives are in there (for obvious reasons).
We are also the people who work in these prisons, who work in the justice system and who have witnessed the inhuman conditions there. This is the inhuman face of Zanu pf in action, just like the Nazis they are not ready to acknowledge that there is a problem and do not care at all about all the people that are suffering and dying.
I for one can tell you that these pictures are very true! There is inside information coming from high places within the justice system. In fact Chinamasa should realise that the airing of all Zimbabwe’s dirty secrets is a clear message from the ones who are entrusted with the dirty jobs ‘that they too like all Zimbabweans are tired of Chinamasa and his kind”
In fact a long time ago we used to fear and respect the leadership, now we have reached a stage of saying, “ko kusiri kufa ndekupi” . To Chinamasa I say that “Your days are numbered and fate will land you in one of these hell-holes one of these days and see how you will like life there”
A more mature approach would have been to institute a board of inquiry and to seek for aid to make the lives of the inmates a bit more human. A long term solution will be for the Minister to try his best to return the prison system to being self sufficient by putting measures and policies that will guard against the abuse of the system by senior prison officers and politicians, all the suffering at the moment is after all partly Chinamasa’s responsibility as he failed to lead by example.
Silence is golden so said some wise people. Here are the facts, the prisoners were wearing tattred and torn uniforms, some of them actually spoke to those cameras in either shona, ndebele or venda.The prison officers are easily seen with their Zimbabwean uniforms. Some relatives of the prisoners were identified and an ex-prisoner with pellagra was interviewed. The facts spoke for themselves. Which foreign country does this stupid guy called Patrick Chinamasa suggests the pictures represent? He may be right that this type of management should be foreign to any eartly government but of course Zimbabwe is an exception because rejects like him are appointed to very senior government positions despite being very incompetent.
Does Chinnamassa think any one will believe him?
He has zero credibility.
It would be easy to verify what SABC is showing the world. Maybe Min. Giles Mutsekwa can help with that.
Now more Zimbabweans can clearly see how Zanu PF regards the citizens of this country.
Mr. Chinamasa would probably not regard a non supporter of Zanu as a Zimbabwean – did Mr. Mutasa not say that Zanu only wanted 6 million people in Zimbabwe? The prisoners are probably MDC supporters whom they do not want anyway. What else can Mr. Chinamasa do, other than remain in his own little bubble of denial in the Zanu PF Garden? Zanu are doing their best to replicate Biafra, the Jewish Concentration camps in Germany, the Japanese prisoner of war camps that held the Allied Troops and the Sudan. Now the world has seen the footage of their handiwork on the people of Zimbabwe, on television.