Madam, – It was always the worst case scenario that Robert Mugabe would use a power-sharing agreement to legitimise excesses against his political opponents. The court decision on Wednesday to proceed with terrorism charges against the Movement for Democratic Change’s Roy Bennett proves that even those inside the new government coalition are not safe from “arbitrary arrest, unlawful detention, torture and killing”, as Amnesty International has documented.
As long ago as March 2005, the Dáil passed a resolution seeking Mr Bennett’s release from imprisonment. His re-arrest in 2009 is a grim signal of intent. And this week’s arrests in Bulawayo lengthen the list of women’s activists, trade unionists, human rights workers and opposition supporters remaining in Zimbabwe’s detention centres. They include Jestina Mukoko of the Zimbabwe Peace Project, who visited the Oireachtas last year.
These people must not be forgotten. As Irish parliamentarians, we will continue to press for all means of international pressure, diplomatic and economic, to be applied against this regime while its abuses persist — even under the veneer of power-sharing. – Yours, etc,