Peter Tatchell says Britain and other EU states should issue warrants for President Mugabe’s arrest on charges of torture
The world is fiddling while Zimbabwe burns. Suspension from the Commonwealth was a futile, symbolic gesture. It did nothing to undermine the Mugabe regime. EU sanctions are equally ineffectual. Zimbabwean leaders regularly evade the travel ban under the guise of attending UN conferences. Mugabe was granted an Italian visa in June, on the basis that he was going to the FAO Food Conference. After making a brief appearance on day one, he spent the rest of his time in Rome shopping, wining and dining. Likewise, Zimbabwe’s Police Commissioner, Augustine Chihuri, used the Interpol meeting in Lyon in August to get around EU restrictions. Britain and France agreed to let him attend, despite Chihuri’s implication in detention without trial, torture and the killing of a peaceful student protester in April last year.
Instead of moaning about the brutalities of the Zimbabwean dictatorship, why doesn’t Britain and the rest of the world do something effective to challenge Mugabe’s tyranny? International human rights laws could be used to arrest him. If the government won’t act, I will. The necessary legislation already exists and I intend to go to court to get it enforced.
Almost every nation has signed the UN Convention Against Torture 1984, and has incorporated it into their own domestic law. Independently of the newly-created the International Criminal Court, the Torture Convention empowers individual countries to arrest and prosecute anyone who commits or authorises torture anywhere in the world.
This universal criminalisation of torture is given legal effect in Britain by Section 134 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988.
President Mugabe and his fellow Zimbabwean human rights abusers are obvious, prime candidates for prosecution. But Britain is not enforcing the Torture Convention. Why not? If Slobodan Milosevic can be arraigned in The Hague, what is stopping the UK (and other signatory states) from putting Robert Mugabe in the dock?
The Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, is all talk and no action. His government has the power to organise warrants for Mugabe’s arrest on charges of torture, but it refuses to do so. Instead, Straw rails impotently against the barbarism of the Zimbabwe regime and cajoles the international community into imposing useless, tokenistic sanctions.
The Attorney-General, Lord Goldsmith QC, is equally culpable. Although having direct personal responsibility for enforcing Britain’s anti-torture law, he has never lifted a finger to authorise the prosecution of Mugabe.
Indeed, until earlier this year, the Zimbabwean leader was free to come to Britain whenever he wanted. Even after the massacre of 20,000 people in Matabeleland during the 1980s, neither the previous Conservative government, nor the current Labour administration, made any attempt to bar him.
Mugabe only stopped coming to Britain after I ambushed his motorcade and seized him in a London street in 1999. I had Mugabe under citizen’s arrest and presented affidavits from Zimbabwean torture victims. But the police and government freed him – and arrested me instead.
The case for Mugabe’s prosecution on charges of torture is overwhelming. He is implicated in the torture of thousands of political opponents – and anyone else who dares to question his misrule. Journalists are among his victims.
When Ray Choto and Mark Chavunduka of The Standard newspaper in Harare were tortured in 1999, their interrogators allegedly told them that they were being tortured on Mugabe’s personal orders. The President has since refused to condemn their torture and has appeared to endorse it, implying that the two men got what they deserved.
I have sworn affidavits from Choto and Chavunduka, attesting to their torture. Their affidavits are backed by Amnesty International and corroborated by the Zimbabwe High Court.
According to Amnesty International: “Military interrogators beat both men all over their bodies with fists, wooden planks and rubber sticks, particularly on the soles of their feet, and gave them electric shocks all over the body, including the genitals”.
These affidavits are just two of the thousands of torture testimonies documented by Zimbabwean human rights groups, such as the Amani Trust. They provide the legal basis for Britain, and other countries, to issue warrants for Mugabe’s arrest.
Unlike Jack Straw’s slap-on-the-wrist sanctions, arrest warrants would be effective and dramatic. They would create real anxiety for Mugabe; haunting him with the nightmare of ending up behind bars like Milosevic.
Once a warrant had been issued, Mugabe could be extradited from any country. He still travels a lot; most recently enjoying a junket in Malaysia. The only way he could avoid arrest is by limiting his foreign forays to the handful of rather unattractive countries without extradition agreements. Otherwise, Mugabe would become a prisoner in his own land; living in permanent fear of arrest.
Apart from this punitive aspect, the issuing of warrants might also act as deterrent – helping to restrain his repression. If Mugabe thought there was a possibility, however remote, that one day he might be put on trial, it could make him think twice about authorising further atrocities.
The issuing of warrants has obvious potential. Yet the Foreign Secretary and Attorney-General are doggedly resistant to the idea. Faced with their indifference to human rights and rule of law, those of us who feel compassion for the long-suffering people of Zimbabwe have no choice: we must enforce the law ourselves.
That is why, as well as continuing to attempt citizen’s arrests of Mugabe and his cronies, I will, in the coming months, go to Bow Street Magistrate’s Court and apply for a warrant for the Zimbabwean leader’s arrest and extradition on charges of torture under Section 134. The only potential snag is that the Attorney-General’s consent is required for a prosecution. But if a magistrate accepts that Mugabe has a case to answer, would Lord Goldsmith dare defy the court? And if he did, would his defiance be upheld by the higher courts?
Published in a slightly edited version as: Criminal Acts, Politico. No 2, Autumn 2002.
Copyright Peter Tatchell 2002. All rights reserved.