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| Africa Subsaharan |
| The plight of a Zimbabwean constable |
| 2007-04-10 |
| Albert Dube is a 34-year-old Zimbabwean police constable stationed in the country's second city of Bulawayo, and he is a man who is ashamed of his past and fearful for his future. When he joined the force 12 years ago, his duties covered routine street patrols and crime prevention. Today he only leaves barracks to take part in police actions, beating and arresting peaceful demonstrators. And many of those he assaults and threatens are his neighbours, friends, relatives, even close members of his own family. "I am in a Catch 22 situation," he tells me, when we met in a small drinking club in the suburb of Makokoba. "People are very angry with us. They accuse us of being Mugabe's dogs. But we have to carry out our orders." He describes how in a police action against demonstrators in Bulawayo recently he came face to face with his own father-in-law, and beat him with his baton. On an earlier occasion he broke the thigh of a man he knew well. "Now, as well as the baton, I have been told I must be armed with a high-powered rifle. That means I will be expected to shoot people." He looks round nervously as he talks. "Who are you frightened of - the police or the local people?" I ask him. "Both," he says, going on to recount how his unit roughly arrested a heavily pregnant woman caught up in a demonstration a month ago. The woman went into labour in the charge room, and is only now recovering in hospital. Her son is not expected to live. Constable Dube has other problems. His wife Betty is a staunch supporter of the opposition MDC party, and home life is fraught with tension. "She says it is her or the police. Either I leave the force, or she leaves me," he says, and there are tears in his eyes. If he does quit, he will be in good company: police numbers have dropped by 10,000 in recent months, many leaving because of poor pay and conditions. As I reported for The First Post yesterday, President Mugabe is having to 'borrow' nearly 3,000 policemen from Angola in return for diamond mining rights. The US ambassador, Christopher Dell, says he detects a new mood among Zimbabweans. "People have turned a corner, they are not afraid any more." He also claims that the violence we are suffering is causing a split in the security forces - that ordinary police officers are reluctant to carry out the attacks and beatings expected of them. But reluctance and refusal are poles apart if you have to earn a living - however small - in a country where inflation is approaching 2,000 per cent. A police salary, small though it is, and police food rations, unreliable though they may be, still make all the difference. Constable Albert Dube has no desire to attack his fellow countrymen. But when on April 2 the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions takes to the streets in protest against Mugabe's regime, Dube will be in the police line confronting them. Armed with his baton, and his high-powered rifle. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #1 I reckon Cde Dube needs a round or two from what I used to call "The Ventilator". |
| Posted by: rhodesiafever 2007-04-10 17:31 |