Testimony of Mr Gabriel Shumba (Zimbabwe) at Human Rights hearing in Washington DC

http://www.zimbabwedemocracytrust.org/outcomes/details?contentId=1685
Mr. Gabriel Shumba is currently Director of the Accountability Commission – Zimbabwe, an organization based in South Africa which is accumulating evidence of the gross human rights violations of President Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF government. He was brutally tortured by the Mugabe regime in January 2003 when, as a working human rights lawyer in Zimbabwe, he represented an opposition MP who had been arrested under false charges. He fled Zimbabwe shortly afterwards following state-sponsored death threats and harassment. Mr. Shumba currently works with Zimbabwean witnesses and victims of violence in Johannesburg gathering evidence of incidents of politically motivated murder, torture, rape and beatings with a view to opening dockets for prosecution.

United States Congress

House Committee on International Relations

Human Rights Practices Around the World: A Review of the State Department's 2003 Annual Report

Washington, Wednesday March 10, 2004

Testimony of Mr Gabriel Shumba (Zimbabwe)

(Human Rights Lawyer, Doctor of Laws Candidate, Legal Regional Director (Africa) for the Accountability Commission-Zimbabwe)

Mr Chair and Members of the Committee, I request that the entirety of my statement, along with the additional material, be submitted for the record. I thank you for the singular honor that you have accorded to me. To be given the opportunity to address this esteemed body at a time when my country, Zimbabwe, is facing an unprecedented social, economic and political crisis is a manifestation of the Free World’s concern with democracy and human rights the world over. Further testimony of this commitment is evident in the 2003 U.S. State Department Report on Human Rights Practices, which devotes significant space to the human rights issues affecting my country.

Mr Chair, I am a human rights lawyer from Zimbabwe who was last year condemned to live in exile in South Africa because of unrelenting persecution, death threats and torture at the hands of President Robert Mugabe’s regime. Allow me to narrate the ordeal that forced me into exile.

Pursuant to the call of my profession, on the 14^th of January 2003 I consented to represent an opposition Member of Parliament, Mr Job Sikhala. He had engaged me to represent him in a matter in which he alleged political harassment by members of the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP). At that moment in time, the MP was hiding from the police.

My young brother, Bishop Shumba, accompanied me to take instructions. I found the MP in the company of one Taurai Magaya and Charles Mutama. I proceeded to take instructions and confer with Mr Sikhala. However, at or about 23:00 hrs, riot police accompanied by plain-clothes policemen, the army and personnel, who I later discovered were from the Central Intelligence Organization (CIO), the spy agency of the government, stormed the room. They were armed with AK 47’s, tear gas canisters, grenades and vicious-looking dogs.

I identified myself as a lawyer and enquired as to the nature and purpose of the police actions. Thereupon, one of the officers confiscated my Lawyer’s Practicing Certificate and informed me that there was ‘no place for human rights lawyers in Zimbabwe’. Others grabbed my diary as well as files and documents. All of us were prodded with guns in the back and bundled into a police vehicle. Several acts of assault and violence were perpetrated upon my person. In particular, I was slapped several times and kicked with booted-feet by amongst others, a certain detective inspector Mbedzi, the officer in charge of Saint Mary’s Police Station. They also threatened to let the dogs maul us, and boasted that this had been done before.

Moments later, we were driven to Saint Mary’s Police Station but no charges were preferred. We were denied access to legal representation and were abused and insulted for allegedly working in cahoots with ‘western powers’ in an attempt ‘to reverse the gains of the liberation struggle’. Our mobile phones were also confiscated, and we were denied contact with our lawyers, relatives and friends.

Around 1:00am we were driven to Matapi Police Station some seven kilometers from the initial place of ‘arrest’. Here Mr Sikhala and Bishop were booked into the holding cells. I was taken to Mbare police holding cells, a further three kilometers away from Matapi, whilst, as I subsequently discovered, Mr Magaya and Mr Mutama were taken to Harare Central Police Station, which is about five kilometers away. The tactic of separating arrestees and taking them to locations removed from where they have been arrested is a favorite of the police in Zimbabwe. This is designed to prevent their relatives or lawyers access to them when they are tortured in torture chambers scattered all over the country.

I was only booked into the cells at around 3:00am. I was denied blankets and had to sleep on a concrete floor. The cell that was about 3m x 4m housed over 20 inmates. I had to spend the whole night squatting in a pool of urine and human waste. This revolting mixture had maggots and worms that irritated or bit at me the whole night. As if this was not enough, I had to endure the torment of other denizens of the cell, which included lice and bed bugs.

Around 12:00pm on the next day, personnel from the CID (Criminal Investigations Dept - Law and Order Section) of the Harare Central Police Station booked me out of Mbare holding cells. Even now I have not been told of the nature of the charges preferred against me, nor had any official entry been made to indicate that I was being held at Mbare, another notorious police tactic. The police were under the charge-ship of one Detective Inspector Garnet Sikhova. In spite of my bruises and the pain that I felt, I was dragged to a yellow mini-bus whose registration numbers I was prevented from looking at. My constant pleas for legal representation, food and water were in vain.

Mr Chair, the mini-bus that I was hauled into had no seats inside. Even more sinister was the fact that it had black curtains and a black carpet lining the windows and the floor. In the extreme end of the vehicle was a raised platform whereupon some of the Police Officers sat. I was nonetheless ordered to sit on the floor facing the back of the vehicle. A black hood was then slipped over my head. It was made of nylon and did not have any breathing-holes in it. In a short while I became claustrophobic, sweated heavily and had difficulties breathing. My requests that part of the hood be pulled slightly over my nose to allow me to breathe were rudely denied. Instead, I was asked to use ‘the mouth that you use to defend the MDC to breathe’.

After what appeared like an hour’s drive, the vehicle pulled over and my hands were handcuffed behind my back. I was bundled out of the car to find myself in a tunnel of some sort, judging by the echoes that our footsteps made. I was advised that ‘you are now a blind man and have to act like a blind person’. After several twists and turns, in what appeared a labyrinth of some sort, we descended about three floors of stairs underground.

Off to the right I could hear the sounds of horrible screaming. I was thrown against the wall and the hood was then removed. I was stripped utterly naked, then had my hands and feet handcuffed and bound so that I was in a foetal position. The police then thrust a thick plank between my legs and hands. Other planks lined the room and the light was dim. In a corner to my right side, there was a pool of what my tormentors told me was acid, into which I could be dissolved without a trace. I was also informed that I could be crucified on the planks against the wall, or have needles thrust into my urethra if ‘you are not co-operative’. In the middle of the room were a small table and a chair. About 15 or so interrogators stood over me and some of them began assaulting me with booted-feet and fists all over the body. I was then given the option of either ‘telling the truth or dying a slow and painful death’.

Several questions were asked about my background as a student activist, the political affiliation of judges, my scholarship to pursue a Masters degree in South Africa, my alleged involvement in the burning of a government bus, and my political ambitions. At some point I was hung upside down on the planks and assaulted beneath the feet with wooden and rubber truncheons, as well as some pieces of metal.

Running concurrently with the other assaults and ongoing interrogation, various electrical shocks were introduced to my body. A black contraption resembling a telephone was placed on the small table. It had several electric cables emanating from it. One cable was tied to the middle toe of my right foot, whilst another was tied to the second toe of the left foot. Another copper wire was wrapped tightly around my genitals. Again, another one was put into my mouth. Still in the foetal position, I was ordered to hold a metallic receiver in my bound right hand and I then forced to place this next to my right ear. A blast of electric shocks was then administered to my body for about eight to nine hours.

On several occasions, I lost consciousness only to be revived to face the same ordeal. A chemical substance was applied to my body. I also lost control of my bladder, vomited blood and was forced to drink my urine and lick my vomit. I was also urinated upon by several of my interrogators. Whilst the questioning was in process, several photographs were taken of me cringing and writhing in pain and in nakedness.

At the end of this ordeal, around 7:00 pm, I was unbound and then forced to write several documents under my torturers’ dictation. In the documents, I incriminated myself as well as senior MDC personnel in several subversive activities. Under pain of death, I was also forced to agree to work for the Central Intelligence Organization, the government spy agency. In addition, I was compelled to swear allegiance to President Robert Mugabe, as well as to promise that I would not disclose my ordeal, either to the independent press or the courts. I later did.

Around 19:30 pm, I was blindfolded and taken to Harare Central Police Station, where I was booked into a holding cell even more horrendously inhumane than that at Mbare Police Station. On the third day of my arrest, my lawyers, who had at that point obtained a High Court injunction ordering my release to court, were allowed access to me. I had not had food or water throughout the period of my detention, which was three days. I had also not been formally notified of the nature of the charge against me. Subsequently, however, I was charged under Section 5 of the Public Order and Security Act, which deals with organizing, planning or conspiring to overthrow the government through unconstitutional means. These charges were dismissed in a court of law after medical evidence established that we had been tortured. Subsequently, I was threatened with death and had to flee for my life.

I worked at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Tanzania for two months and was threatened by the High Commissioner of Zimbabwe to Tanzania. I then had to flee to South Africa. In spite of psychiatric and other medical treatment, I continue to experience nightmares, suffer depression as well extreme fatigue.

I am convinced that my torture and ill treatment was authorized and condoned at the highest level of the Zimbabwe state. It is inconceivable that President Mugabe is unaware that his police, army and intelligence officials are using torture. The President has been aware that torture is being used against human rights activists and those suspected to be linked to the MDC, as is exemplified by the case of journalists Mark Chavunduka and Ray Choto. The two were brutally tortured by the army and Chavunduka died later. Mugabe was however on TV gloating that those who write stories about the army should expect ‘army justice’.

I lodged a report of what transpired to me with the police, but up to now no action has been taken. I have also instructed my lawyer to institute civil proceedings, but am not hopeful, as the Executive has largely subverted the judicial system. Furthermore, the police in Zimbabwe are notorious for defying court orders.

Mr Chair, I should also point out that members of my family who are still in Zimbabwe are in mortal danger as I speak. I cannot afford to lose them as we are a very small family, having been orphaned early in life. I am the first born in a family of four. Both my parents are deceased. My father died of cancer of the liver when I was 10 years old. I became the sole breadwinner of the family after my mother passed away some years later. My mother succumbed to the AIDS virus in 1995, having spent many years trying to raise us.

Eventually, I struggled through education with the help of a kind white couple, Mary Austin and John Ayton. I mention this couple to dispel the myth that the crisis in Zimbabwe is a tug of war between black and white.

At the University of Zimbabwe where I obtained a Bachelor of Laws (Honors) degree I was a student activist. In 1995 I led demonstrations against police brutality. This culminated in my suspension from the University of Zimbabwe (UZ) for a period of two years. Whilst on suspension, I wrote articles on student rights and addressed seminars on academic freedom in Zimbabwe. After readmission to the University in 1997, I mounted a one-person demonstration to protest the heavy handedness of the police in quelling student disturbances. For this I was abducted and tortured at a torture chamber situated in the basement of Harare Central Prison.

Mr Chair, to date I have been arrested and assaulted or tortured 14 times under the regime of President Robert Mugabe. At my graduation on the 18th of August 2000, I was again arrested and taken into police custody for attempting to hand over a petition protesting the breakdown of the rule of law in Zimbabwe, especially on the farms, to President Robert Mugabe. As I approached Mugabe, who is also Chancellor of the University, his bodyguards whisked me away. As a result, I could not graduate with my fellow students as I was in prison, complete in my academic regalia. This incident was reported in the press. Mr Chair, I submit that all that which transpired to me should be seen as a microcosm of the brutality visited upon human rights and opposition activists in Zimbabwe.

I thank you Honorable Members.
United States Congress