African observer missions declare Zimbabwe poll not free and fair

By Violet Gonda
30 June 200

African observer missions have condemned the conduct of the Zimbabwe Presidential run-off. Both the Pan African Parliament and SADC observer missions announced that the run off election was not free and fair and that the one-man poll ‘did not conform to regional principles and guidelines governing democratic elections.’ This is the first time that both African observer missions have issued a damning report on Zimbabwe.

Dianne Kohler Barnard, one of the SADC observers and a South African opposition MP, said the election was the most cynical farce she has ever witnessed. Speaking about the SADC report she said: “I was quite impressed with the final report that came out. It just said it was absolutely not the reflection of the will of the people. In other words SADC cannot accept this man as the President.”

Kohler Barnard said this is the first time that she felt she could sign a statement from the SADC observer mission, because it was an accurate representation of the events in Zimbabwe. She had refused to sign mission statements on previous Zimbabwean elections but she said this time around the evidence was so overwhelming, SADC could not disguise the facts.

This is the fourth time the Democratic Alliance Member of Parliament has been to Zimbabwe as an observer, but this time she was shocked to see how cultural taboos have been smashed. Kohler Barnard said there is now a complete reversal of what had been a respectful society, into one in which youngsters have been beating, raping and killing adults.

The SADC observer added; “I really don’t know how to get that respect, that your country was so famous for, back into society… everything that you read and heard about what was going on in the country I saw, I filmed, I photographed. It all happened.”

The outspoken South African opposition official said she was able to tell the relevant ambassador of the observer mission and the Deputy Chief Whip of the ANC, who were on the scribing committee, that if they went into the final meeting with the heads of SADC and watered-down the report, she would expose them. “I said I am happy with this now but if you go into that meeting, the final meeting with the Heads of SADC and you are overwhelmed by the hardliners, the right-wingers who think that military regimes by despots are a wonderful thing, I said I will get onto televisions and radios all over the world and damn you, because I will not have my name – in fact we should not have South Africa’s name once again linked to a whitewash. And they gave me their personal assurances.”

Meanwhile, Helen Zille, the Mayor of Cape Town and leader of the Democratic Alliance has sent a letter to Ban Ki Moon, the UN Secretary General, asking him to put the human rights violations in Zimbabwe on the agenda of the Security Council. The aim is to establish a commission of enquiry to investigate the rights abuses, so that the matter can be referred to the International Criminal Court, to investigate crimes against humanity.

Kohler Barnard said; “Now if you look at Article 7 of the Rome Statute of the ICC, it defines crimes against humanity as a widespread or systematic attack against any civilian population. That includes murder, extermination, deportation, imprisonment, torture, rape and political persecution. Well that frankly defines the country and the situation I have just left.”