there were scuffles as well in the MDC Alliance where those who were suspected of
decampaigning Nelson Chamisa were also targeted.
These reprisals manifested through deprivation of government funded food aid and
agriculture inputs and evictions. In Guruve those who acted as polling agents for MDC
Alliance candidates were targeted and failed to access farming inputs. In Mazowe a woman
who had worked as an election observer was evicted from a farm where she had been living
for a number of years. Several cases of deprivation of food aid were recorded in rural areas
soon after elections as those who had voted for losing candidates or acted as poll agents of
opposition parties or observers were targeted. In farming communities those who had been
resettled but accused of supporting the opposition parties were forcibly evicted.
It was also a period of hate speech and intolerance as supporters of feuding parties owing to
the undecided electoral court case exchanged harsh words mainly on social media. A case in
point is losing MP for Southerton in Harare receiving intolerant threats in response to an
article he wrote describing opposition leader Nelson Chamisa as a dictator. The post election
period was also one of criminalisation of opposition politics as opposition supporters and
their leaders were targets for arrests.
Contestations on the outcomes of the elections resulted in violent protests in Harare on 1
August which were met by disproportionate force by the state. Soldiers were deployed and
fired live ammunition at protestors and some citizens who had nothing to do with the protest
but rather were going about their own activities such as vending. One of the people who
remained with a bullet lodged in his shoulder is a deaf and dumb 34 year old man. ‘When I
saw everyone around me run I also ran’, he said when he narrated his ordeal to his family. It
is unfortunate that when tragedies such as this happen no one really considers that among the
citizens in the Central Business District are people with disabilities (PWDs) like in this case
he did not hear the automatic rifle when it filled the air and sadly he was to become a victim
of this callous attack. This has exposed the unconventional crowd control methods used by
security forces that disregard human rights and fail to consider all citizens.
The President has responded with the appointment of a commission of inquiry to investigate
the killings and establish who is responsible and make recommendations. The news of the
appointment of the Commission which is made up of local, regional and international actors
has viewed in many different ways but the bottom line is that Zimbabweans and the world
want answers as to what happened on August 1 most specifically who ordered the army on
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