WHERE'S THE LOVE? - VALENTINE'S DAY ARRESTS

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 HARARE 000177 SIPDIS SIPDIS AF/S FOR B. NEULING NSC FOR SENIOR AFRICA DIRECTOR C. COURVILLE USAID/AFR/SA FOR E. LOKEN E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/31/2016 TAGS: PGOV PHUM ASEC ZI SUBJECT: WHERE'S THE LOVE? - VALENTINE'S DAY ARRESTS REF: HARARE 113 AND PREVIOUS Classified By: Ambassador Christopher Dell for reasons 1.5 b/d -------------- Summary -------------- ¶1. (U) On February 14, approximately 300 members of women's activist group Women of Zimbabwe Arise! (WOZA) marched in Harare, demanding affordable food and social justice. Police arrested around 250 of the women along with their lawyer, Tafadzwa Mugabe of Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights. The previous day, police arrested approximately 180 at WOZA's march in Bulawayo. End summary. -------------- Women March for "Bread and Roses" in Harare -------------- ¶2. (U) On February 14, approximately 300 members of the women's activist group, Women of Zimbabwe Arise! (WOZA), participated in WOZA's annual Valentine's Day march in Harare. Poloff observed the march. Soon after the appointed hour for the march, several women who had been milling around the downtown corner where the march was to begin came together and begin distributing roses and banners. The group quickly grew to about 300 and marched down the street, unfurling banners and tossing around copies of WOZA's latest newsletter and cards with the theme of this year's march, "bread and roses." According to the newsletter, "bread" represents the need for affordable food and "roses" represent social justice, modeled on the theme of a worker's strike in Kansas in 1912. The cards proclaimed "We want more than day-to-day survival--we deserve roses and the dignity they stand for." -------------- Police Arrest Marchers and Their Lawyer -------------- ¶3. (U) After marching a few blocks, some of the group dispersed into a nearby park upon the arrival of a handful of police officers with helmets, batons, and a single police vehicle. The police gathered the women in front of St. Mary's cathedral. Many pedestrians gathered on the corners near the cathedral and at the edge of the park to watch the scene. The women who had moved into the park reappeared among the crowd and began handing out more newsletters. Many in the crowd were asking who WOZA was and what the march was about. Police approached the crowd several times, brandishing their batons and shouting at the �00A;onlookers to clear the area, but there was no violence directed at the women or the crowd. The initially small group of police officers was using radios, and a few minutes later, additional police arrived with a pickup truck that began taking the women away. The first women driven away were smiling as they were led into the truck, and a cheer arose from the other marchers as the truck drove away. Tafadzwa Mugabe, a lawyer from Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR),was present from the time of the detention and attempted to communicate with police, who surrounded him and gestured at him with their batons. ¶4. (C) According to ZLHR's Otto Saki, police arrested Tafadzwa and refused to reveal the charges. Saki said that, after taking the WOZA women to Harare Central Police Station, police had begun roaming downtown, arresting other women who looked like they might be WOZA women. Saki said that some women passersby who had not participated in the march handed themselves over to police in solidarity with the WOZA women. Police arrested approximately 250 women in all. Saki was planning to appear in the High Court that afternoon to file an urgent application for the release of all the women and Tafadzwa. Police released Tafadzwa later that day, but, as of close of business on February 15, police still held 192 women. -------------- Women Arrested in Another March in Bulawayo -------------- ¶5. (U) According to a February 14 ZLHR press release, police arrested 181 women and men at the end of WOZA's February 13 Valentine's march in Bulawayo. Among those detained were 14 babies who had been with their mothers during the march and who depended on nursing for food. Police had kept the detained in an open courtyard at Bulawayo Central Police Station, exposed to the rain, for several hours before being moved to cells. Initially, WOZA leader Jenni Williams had been held separately and ZLHR lawyers had been denied access to any of the detained. Police later returned Williams to the group and granted ZLHR access. Police charged the women and men with violations of the Public Order and Security Act for participating in an unauthorized march. According to ZLHR, Police released all the detainees in Bulawayo on February ¶15. -------------- Comment -------------- ¶6. (C) Although Zimbabwe's periodic public demonstrations are becoming heavily scripted affairs with participants, police, and lawyers each settling into familiar roles, the lack of violence in public masks the brutality such activists experience from police behind closed doors. In this instance, the initial small police presence and scramble to obtain reinforcements suggests that the size of the demonstration may have caught the police off-guard. Authorities may have assumed that the arrest of nearly 200 women in Bulawayo the day before would deter participants in the February 14 Harare march. Instead, the women came out in similar numbers in Harare and with a great deal of enthusiasm. The detention of ZLHR lawyer Tafadzwa Mugabe, an unusual practice, may be related to the GOZ's ongoing campaign of harassment against ZLHR (reftel). ¶7. (C) WOZA's march seems to have been a PR success for the organization, which, along with Lovemore Madhuku's National Constitutional Assembly, is one of the few NGOs capable of turning at least some people out in the streets. The courage of these ordinary women, usually quite poor, who march several times a year knowing police will arrest many or most of them, is remarkable in an atmosphere when most citizens are occupied with the day-to-day business of survival. At this point, it appears unlikely that civil society and the larger democratic forces will be able to capitalize on these small demonstrations to tap into the widespread public discontent and generate momentum for lawful civil resistance. DELL