ZLHR ON INTRA-AU FRICTION OVER HUMAN RIGHTS;

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 HARARE 000665

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

AF/S FOR B. NEULING
NSC FOR SENIOR AFRICA DIRECTOR C. COURVILLE
AFR/SA FOR E. LOKEN
COMMERCE FOR BECKY ERKUL

E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/31/2011
TAGS: PGOV PREL PHUM ZI
SUBJECT: ZLHR ON INTRA-AU FRICTION OVER HUMAN RIGHTS;
POSSIBLE GOZ PROSECUTION OF HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES


Classified By: Charge d'Affaires, a.i., Eric T. Schultz under Section 1
.4 b/d

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Summary
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1. (C) Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR)
representatives on May 31 advised the CDA on efforts by the
Council of Ministers of the African Union, at GOZ
instigation, to thwart the African Commission on Human and
People's Rights (ACHPR) through procedural improprieties and
budget manipulations. According to the lawyers, they were
developing contacts in Addis Ababa and along with the ACHPR
were mobilizing civil society pressure on the AU to rein in
the Council. On the local front, the lawyers claimed to have
inside knowledge that a senior GOZ prosecutor was preparing
to prosecute potentially thousands of cases of
ZANU-PF-engineered political violence dating back to 2000.
End summary.

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AU Council of Ministers/Secretariat v. ACHPR
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2. (C) Recently returned from Banjul, Gambia, ZLHR senior
attorney Jacob Mafume said ACHPR officials who are
headquartered there complained of systematic efforts by the
AU's Council of Ministers to neutralize the ACHPR's work.
The Council had refused to put the ACHPR's Zimbabwe
resolution on the Heads of State agenda and instead had
improperly referred it back to the ACPHR without legal basis
in a clear effort to delay its consideration. ACHPR
officials had said they referred it back to the Council,
insisting it be placed on the agenda of the Banjul Summit in
June.


3. (C) Mafume related that the AU Secretariat under the
Council was also using budget and personnel issues to hem in
the ACHPR's independence. Responding to GOZ complaints of
ACHPR conflict of interest in accepting international donor
funding, the Secretariat had cut off such funding. Although
South Africa had agreed to take up the funding, it had yet to
do so. Moreover, claiming ACHPR staff incompetence, the
Secretariat was undertaking to fire existing staff and

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replace them with more malleable employees on short-term
contracts.


4. (C) According to Mafume, the ACHPR had complained
bitterly about inaction among civil society in the face of
these affronts. It was seeking to mobilize interested NGOs
throughout the continent to lobby member governments about
the Council's misbehavior toward the ACHPR. Mafume said ZLHR
had promised to help; he expected the civics to be active at
the Banjul Summit and noted a petition on the issue was being
circulated among relevant NGOs. He expected organized
resistance from states that had been criticized by the ACHPR,
including Djibouti, Uganda, DRC, Eritrea, and Zimbabwe.


5. (C) On the CDA's inquiry, Mafume advised that the ACHPR
continued to entertain 13 pending cases against Zimbabwe (not
counting the resolution on Operation Restore Order and an
earlier fact-finding report),five of which had been already
been deemed subject to Commission jurisdiction. He noted
that some cases could be amenable to the potential
jurisdiction of the nascent African Court. Mafume said ZLHR
was generally satisfied with the jurists who had been
selected for the Courtbut noted that it still lacked funding

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or a venue.

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Cultivating AU Staff
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6. (C) Just back from Addis Ababa, New York and Washington,
ZLHR Executive Director Arnold Tsunga and senior attorney
Otto Saki (who received a major human rights award in New
York) informed the CDA about ZLHR efforts to establish a
platform of engagement with AU staff on Zimbabwe human rights
issues. They said they had found officials from three
relevant AU organs to be helpful and potentially useful --
the Commission for Political Affairs, Commission for Peace
and Security, and Commission for Social Affairs.


7. (C) Elaborating on personnel, Tsunga and Saki remarked
that Commissioner Advocate Bience Gawanas from the Commission
for Social Affairs, a Namibian, had expressed particular
interest in getting more involved on Zimbabwe issues. She
advised them to frame their issues with a more indivisible
humanitarian element that would secure her office's
involvement. The CDA encouraged ZLHR's continued cultivation
of potential allies in the organization.


8. (C) Tsunga and Saki noted that an office director in the
Commission for Political Affairs, Patrick Tigere, was known
to be associated with the Zimbabwean intelligence
organization. He had nonetheless been cordial to them during
a long meeting and furnished them with substantial useful
information that they corroborated in subsequent meetings.
That said, they noted he was a knowledgeable and persuasive
technocrat who they suspected had been influencing others in
the AU secretariat toward positions favorable to the GOZ,
including the efforts to rein in the ACHPR.

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GOZ to Prosecute ZANU-PF Human Rights Abuses?
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9. (C) Tsunga and Saki reported that a senior official in
the Attorney General's Office had told them earlier in the
week that "things were changing" in the AG's Office. He said
the AG had recently received thousands of police files on
political violence investigations dating back to 2000 with
instructions from unnamed higher-ups to pursue prosecutions.
The prosecutor noted that current Minister for Justice,
Parliamentary and Legal Affairs Patrick Chinamasa was among
the putative defendants in the files. Tsunga agreed with the
CDA,s observation that this could be a further manifestation
of the brewing succession struggle within ZANU-PF.


10. (C) In a possibly related development, the state
announced earlier this week that it had imposed the death
sentence on the murderer of a white farmer. However, Tsunga
expressed skepticism about the announcement, noting that
another individual sentenced to death with great fanfare for
the publicized murders of two tourists in the 1980s was
quietly released two years later. Tsunga said the latest
convict could be expected to appeal on the grounds that he
was a soldier in "the Third Chimurenga" (the government's
casting of land reform as a revolution),and could ultimately
be pardoned by Mugabe after the court process had run its
course.

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Comment
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11. (C) Africa's past and future human rights victims have a
large stake in how the AU addresses the Council of Minister's
efforts to undermine the ACHPR's courageous work. We should
be looking for ways to help ACHPR fend off this attack. As
for a possible wave of prosecutions of human rights abuses in
Zimbabwe, Chinamasa's inclusion suggests the Mujuru clique is
behind its commencement. However, the Mnanagagwa camp may
well seek to exploit the opportunity as well, which would be
the best of all possible outcomes.
SCHULTZ