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(NEWZIMBABWE) SA cops worst human rights violators: Moyo

SA cops worst human rights violators: Moyo
01/03/2013 00:00:00
by Staff Reporter

SOUTH African police are the “worst violators of human rights in Africa”, a Zanu PF MP claimed on Friday a day after the release of a shocking mobile phone video of a police van dragging a man down a street with his hands cuffed.

Mido Macia, a Mozambican national, later died at a police station, allegedly after being subjected to further beatings. A post-mortem gave the cause of death as head injuries with internal bleeding.

The video provoked outrage with President Jacob Zuma labelling it "horrific, disturbing and unacceptable”, adding: “No human being should be treated in that manner."

Police chief Riah Phiyega said the eight officers involved in the incident last Tuesday had been suspended and the station commander would be removed from his duties.

But as South Africa struggled to contain public anger after the video made international headlines, some Zanu PF figures who have been hectored about human rights by the South Africans were rubbing their hands with glee.

Only last week, South Africa’s National Prosecuting Authority spokesman Makhosini Nkosi said South African police are investigating accusations by 84 women who say they were raped in the lead-up to Zimbabwe’s 2008 elections

South Africa is able to prosecute foreign citizens because it is a signatory to the Rome Statute, which established the Hague-based International Criminal Court, according to Shonali Shome, the legal and gender adviser for the Canadian NGO, AIDS-Free World.

But Professor Jonathan Moyo, a senior Zanu PF official, says the latest scandal to hit South African police after last year’s Marikana massacre when police opened fire on miners, killing 34, shows they are unfit to investigate Zimbabwe.

“With their murderous apartheid roots still firmly intact, the South African police are the worst violators of human rights, not just in the region but in Africa,” Moyo said on Friday.

“It is an unacceptable insult for anyone to imagine, let alone suggest that such a rogue police force like SAP can investigate anything about human rights in Zimbabwe. Charity must begin at home.”

Moy said “time has come to call a spade a spade to put a stop to the continuing trail of brutality and murder that has come to define the conduct of the South African Police whose impunity has gone way too far as exemplified by the latest undeniable incident of the atrocity against Mido Macia.”

“There's no better way of doing that than by putting South Africa on the agenda of the SADC organ on politics, security and defence sooner rather than later given that South Africa has proven to be incapable of policing itself under or through SAP,” he added.
There is no love lost between Zanu PF hardliners and President Jacob Zuma’s government.

Zanu PF is sensitive to charges, usually made by junior officials in the South African government, that it is responsible for human rights abuses in Zimbabwe and is impeding reforms.
Moyo, unrestrained by diplomatic shackles, has been the party’s attack dog.

South Africa’s reported decision to look into the rape claims, allegedly committed by Zanu PF members, appears to have riled President Robert Mugabe’s party which enjoyed better relations with Zuma’s predecessor, Thabo Mbeki.

Moyo said: “It’s a shame that while this tragedy is unfolding in South Africa, western architects and merchants of regime change in Zimbabwe – many who operate from South Africa or who use that country as a base from which to destabilise Zimbabwe – want the world to continue believing the lie that human rights are more threatened in Zimbabwe than they are in South Africa where such atrocities as xenophobic burning to death of African immigrants through ‘necklacing’ are common.

“Who in their right mind really believes that a rogue police force like the SAP can have the moral or legal authority or legitimacy to investigate any alleged crime against humanity? What investigation are we talking about? Have the South African Police investigated their Marikana massacre with any credibility? Who is inspired by the fact that the South African police tried to cover up their atrocity against Mido Macia?”

Labels: HUMAN RIGHTS, JONATHAN MOYO, POLICE

posted by MrK @ 6:15 PM