Brains behind abductions exposed
December 23, 2008
Abducted human rights activist, Jestina Mukoko
By Our Correspondents
A SENIOR police officer in Harare has now been identified as the leader of a group of state operatives who have orchestrated the recent wave of abductions.
The Zimbabwe Times can reveal that Chief Superintendent Chrispen Makedenge, who has been associated over the years with the arrest of opposition politicians, journalists and human rights activists, is the alleged mastermind behind the wave of the series of abductions.
Makedenge is the officer commanding the Law and Order section of the police, The operatives drawn from police, the Zimbabwe National Army and Central Intelligence Organisation have targeted members of the mainstream Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party as well as civic and human rights activists and journalists.
The operation has strangely been code-named “Chimumumu”, Shona for a dumb person.
Sources within the police force also allege that Makedenge is also in charge of the torture chamber at Harare Central Police Station.
“Chief Superintendent Makedenge is the man in charge of the operation to abduct MDC members and anyone else believed to be a threat to the government,” said a source within the police force, who spoke on condition he was not identified, for fear of victimisation.
“He even accuses fellow members of the police for supporting MDC.”
The source said a large budget had been allocated to Operation Chimumumu.
Among the benefits enjoyed by Makedenge’s team were access to a variety of new vehicles that had been placed at their disposal, an unlimited fuel of supply and permanent bookings in various hotels throughout the country.
The source said Makedenge had been allocated a commercial farm in the rich Banket farming area and had benefited immensely from the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe’s farm mechanisation programme.
The team is said to report directly to President Mugabe’s office.
Makedenge’s deputy is a police officer identified by sources only as Muwuya. He is also based at Harare Central Police Station in the Law and Order Section.
“Other members of the team include several army intelligence officers, police officers as well as a CIO hit squad whose task is to gather information on targeted people,” said another source.
“The CIO gather information which they pass onto to the abductors who are the officers from the Law and Order Section and the army who will then effect the abductions. The team is under strict instructions to take the abducted people alive.”
Among some of the prominent people to be abducted so far are Jestina Mukoko, a leading human rights activist, and former news anchor at the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC). She is now the director of the Zimbabwe Peace Project (ZPP). The organisation has been outspoken about the political violence and intimidation accompanying this year’s elections.
Mukoko, whose organisation has publicised human rights violations in Zimbabwe, was taken hostage on December 3 by a group of about a dozen armed men in a pre-dawn raid on her home in Norton, 40 kilometres west of Harare.
Lawyers said Tuesday that she and various other abducted activists had been located at various police stations in Harare.
Ghandi Mudzingwa, a former Tsvangirai personal aide and a member of the MDC security department was abducted in Msasa, Harare. Close to 40 people have been abducted in recent months.
The Managing Editor of The Zimbabwe Times, Geoffrey Nyarota, was arrested by the Law and Order section on six occasions between 2001 and 2002. He said Tuesday that Makedenge had either personally arrested him or assigned subordinates to arrest him.
“On one occasion Chief Superintendent Boysen Mathema and Chief Inspector Henry Dowa came for me just after midnight and on another they came at dawn,” Nyarota said. “In the dawn raid they arrested me as well as Wilf Mbanga, former general manager of the Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe, publishers of The Daily News.”
Mbanga now publishes The Zimbabwean in the United Kingdom.
“In fact,” Nyarota says, “Makedenge was the immediate reason why I fled from Zimbabwe in January 2002.
“After I was mysteriously fired from The Daily News Makedenge made several telephone calls to my house to demand that I report to his office. I was forced to go into hiding. When I returned home a week later Makedenge had left a pile of messages requesting that I report to his office. He had called day and night.
“Without the protection of The Daily News I had become vulnerable. I caught the next plane to Johannesburg. Once safely ensconced in Sandton I returned Makedenge’s many telephone calls. He said I should report to his office immediately but refused to disclose the reason for this request, saying I would be informed on arrival. Without disclosing that I was calling from Johannesburg, I told him I would call again to say when I was coming to his office.”
Nyarota says he has never been back to Zimbabwe since then. He publishes The Zimbabwe Times from Massachusetts in the United States.
In September 2003, the United Nations asked the Zimbabwe government to withdraw Henry Dowa, described in official reports as “a notorious Zimbabwean police torturer”, from Kosovo where he was stationed as part of the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) civilian police force (CIVPOL). CIVPOL is made up of several thousand police officers drawn from UN Member States, including Zimbabwe.
Zimbabwe obliged and Dowa returned to Harare.
REDRESS, a British-based organisation, which campaigns against torture, had submitted a comprehensive dossier to the head of UNMIK in June 2003. The dossier comprised affidavits from Zimbabwe torture victims detailing what they had suffered allegedly at Dowa’s hands, including electric shock, torture and beatings on the bare soles of the feet. The affidavits were supported by medical evidence.
The dossier also contained an analysis of human rights violations in Zimbabwe then, especially torture. It was demonstrated in the dossier even back then that it was virtually impossible to bring violators to justice under Zimbabwean law under the then prevailing conditions.
The situation has only worsened now.
Over the past few months a new wave of human rights violations, including abductions, torture and killings, have been perpetrated with impunity by state agents against political and civil society activists.
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Siti Chikati
We are Zimbabweans not Malawians or Zambians. It’s you who seem to think opposition parties in Zimbabwe should get votes from Zambia and Malawi. Its only aliens like you who after getting Zimbabwean citizenship corruptly through praising Zanu-PF, you sing endless praises of Mugabe.
Siti Chikate, george bachinche, etc, Matibili- all these are aliens hell-bent on destroying Zimbabwe. No Rozvi blood flowes in thier veins!
Zimbabweans, Shona and Ndebele do not have such a cruel streak!
Ini Bate-Reke
Tsvangirai threatened to withdraw from the power sharing talks unless the abducted people were either released or brought before a Court of Law, did he not? A few days later Mukoko and a few others were produced before a Court of Law. Why should Tsvangirai not see that as a victory on his part, I certainly do. Whether or not it is a victory, is in fact a minor point. The big issue here is why did Tsvangirai not insist that all political motivated violence should stop before he would take part in any talks back in July?
I do not accept the nosense that Tsvangirai is helpless to influence Mugabe- this story being one proof of what I am saying. Tsvangirai is helpless because he choses to be and it is the ordinary Zimbabweans who are paying dearly for his feebleness; that is a fact. You, Ini Bate- Reke and many others refuse to see Tsvangirai as capable of doing anything wrong (we have seen all this before with Mugabe).
What judge is going to soil their own reputation by being part of this charade ? Let us wait and see ! TOMANA and CHIDYAUSIKU ?
Even Ian Douglas Smith, the rebel colonial leader of Rhodesia never used to treat his prisoners the way we are seeing today ! From the torture dungeons, straight to the kangaroo courts ! Now consider the multiple distance education degrees some of these same people came out of prison with ! And for real crimes by the way ! !
Valentine and Pagan, sorry I am unable to respond to your comments. The editor/moderator keeps blocking my responses.
EDITOR: Editors and moderators have every right to withhold from publication contributions that do not satisfy the requirements of their publication.
Wilbert Mukori on December 26th, 2008 9:01 am
I thought you have always been one of them. You have obviously stepped on someone’s raw nerves and now seem to be a deliberate target of “friendly fire”. You must THINK before you say anyting on this website that is even remotely critical of Saint Sir Morgan Tsvangirayi!
Politics has a way of somehow damaging people’s intellect. We now have the likes of Marx rubbishing degrees from reputable universities, simply because someone he dislikes happnes to have obtained their degrees from there; Shame.