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independence of the judiciary have also compounded the current problem of
impunity.
Extrajudicial executions and the infringement of the rights to freedom of
assembly and association
Amnesty International is very concerned by the level of apparently orchestrated
threats and violence against perceived or real supporters of the opposition
parties. The organization concluded that these incidents were occurring with the
complicity of the government, through lack of protection by the police of those
at risk, and/or failure to conduct impartial investigations into abuses, or
through direct involvement of state agents in killings, or through verbal
incitement of the perpetrators by members of the government including at the
highest level.
Among other cases brought to Amnesty International's attention was that of a
youth member of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) from Mataga village in
the district of Mberengwa, Midlands province. Last week the youth member
(referred to as A for reasons of security) was visited by people she said were
supporters of the ruling party, the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU -PF)
and war veterans of Zimbabwe's 1970s struggle for independence. They accused A
of joining a party "that wants to give Zimbabwe back to the whites." She said
that she was assaulted by them.
A reported the case to the police. She said that the next day a 300-strong crowd
returned and force-marched her and her husband to a nearby tree, where both
''were thoroughly beaten'' for five hours with machetes, batons and axe handles.
They were made to chant ZANU-PF slogans and sing the ruling party's liberation
songs. She said that many suspected MDC members were rounded up from their homes
and taken to that tree that day. They were forced to surrender their MDC cards,
T-shirts and literature. A claimed that five police officers stood by about 50
metres away watching while they were being beaten and took no steps to
intervene.
In another example, Blessing Chebundo, the MDC candidate for Kwekwe constituency
in the Midlands, had to flee the town together with his campaign manager and
their families following attempts to kill them, and following the final
destruction of their houses and all their belongings. Blessing Chebundo had been
warned previously to leave MDC. One of the campaign manager's children spent a
week in hospital after being beaten and left in a burning house.
Blessing Chebundo reported that the attacks against him included, on 9 May,
being doused with petrol at a bus station. He managed to grab one of his five
attackers, thereby preventing another from setting him on fire because the
attacker would have been burned in the process. Kwekwe police, who were given
the name and address of one of the alleged attackers, interviewed three