Zimbabweans are an angry lot.
For some reason, they get triggered at every turn judging by the dichotomy in social media spaces.
They are judgemental, abrasive, brash, trolling, and always defensive. In many instances, they love trivia while the country burns.
But it is the anger that came to the fore when Zimbabwe’s High Court judge Munamato Mutevedzi sentenced two murderers to death on the 12th of July.
Growing calls for the return of the death penalty reached a crescendo and the anger has been palpable.
Capital punishment is a legal penalty in Zimbabwe even though there have not been executions since 2005 and leading voices in government previously indicated to be in favour of total abolition of the practice.
By 2017, The Zimbabwe Prisons and Correctional Services had a total of 90 inmates on death row. In 2023, there is 62 and there is no hangman to do the job for about 17 years owing to a de-facto moratorium on executions since 2005.
The court ruled against convicts Tapiwa Makore Snr (60) and Tafadzwa Shambwa(40) who stood accused of drugging and brutally murdering seven-year old Tapiwa Makore(jnr) for alleged ritual purposes in Nyamutumbu Village, Murehwa on 17 September 2020.
The toddler’s remains were found by police detectives in a shallow grave, dismembered with missing body parts in a shocking murder that gripped the nation.
Shamba confessed the murder saying they had intended to sell the boy’s body parts to a traditional healer for US$1,500 which they hoped to boost their cabbage-selling business.
To this day the deceased boy’s skull has not been proffered with its whereabouts unknown.
The traditional healer is roaming free sparking nationwide outrage he should be inside jail with his accomplices.
In a televised court session to pass the verdict, the interpreter won many hearts for good interpretation skills while Tapiwa’s mother wept uncontrollably tugging at the nation’s heartstrings in the process.
Nevertheless, this case re-ignited the fervent debate on the death penalty on social media. Using a cacophony of voices, it was enough to sample the citizens who want the death penalty back without a full grasp of its consequences and what it means to the world.
The judge’s verdict though welcome was long- overdue. Police and the courts took three years to come to the verdict. This case ranked among the most unforgivable and heinous crimes to be witnessed in the country.
But when President Munangagwa was Minister of Justice, Parliamentary and Legal Affairs, he refused to sign death warrants of convicted prisoners meant for the gallows.
This was a subtle way to admonish Mugabe, the President, and appoint authority for his wanton ways. He had been on a killing spree dispensing death warrants. It is estimated that over 70 people have been hanged since Zimbabwe gained independence in 1980 as Mugabe dished out death warrants like wedding confetti.
Even though it is in the books, this was a serious test of Munangagwa’s character and intellect.
He cited it was a difficult decision to make having survived death row himself for sabotage offenses during the country’s liberation struggle. The President survived death by a cat’s whisker owing to his age. He was under 18 years when the offenses were committed.
This move not only revealed his true character but put Zimbabwe abreast with current trends across the world.
Many countries are doing away with the death penalty opting for other forms of punishment including loss of citizenship, heavy fines, and life imprisonment.
President Munangagwa is on record as ‘wholeheartedly’ against the death penalty.
In addition, he describes it as ‘flagrant violation of the right to life and dignity’.
On World Day Against Death Penalty in November 2018, he said: “The death penalty is an affront to human dignity. It constitutes cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment and is contrary to the right to life”
The death penalty has no established deterrent effect and it makes judicial errors irreversible,” he added.
Zimbabwe’s newly adopted Constitution of 2013 called for the total abolishment of the death penalty without extenuating circumstances.
Section 48 of the Constitution says the death penalty may only be imposed only for murder committed in aggravating circumstances and only on men aged between 21- 70 years. Women, the mentally ill and juveniles are not, it says, are not to be executed.
In addition, it calls for a ban on the practice on citizens above 70 years and those below 21 years from a previous benchmark of 18 when they commit crimes carrying the death sentence.
In March this year, the government went on a two-week nationwide consultation tour to determine whether people are in favor of the return of the death penalty for people convicted of premeditated murder.
However local rights group Veritas says President Munangagwa should not impose his belief on the outcome as it is felt many people are in favor of the return of the death penalty.
On the regional front, the late Tanzanian President John Magufuli refused to sign death warrants saying: “Please don’t bring the list to me for decision because I know how difficult it is to execute”.
In 2017, the late Mugabe said: “Let’s restore the death penalty. People are playing with death by killing each other. Is this why we liberated this country? We want this country to be a peaceful and happy nation, not a country with people that kill each other”.
Notwithstanding the death penalty’s long-held belief that it deters criminal activity, the practice was introduced by colonial arrivals in Zimbabwe as a way of enforcing authority as they went about raiding land and cattle from natives.
The locals who stood against colonists were hanged in a massive and cruel show of force.
Many historical figures such as Mbuya Nehanda, Sekuru Kaguvi were hanged and lots more died unrecorded deaths on trees across the country and largely in Matebeleland.
Historically Lobengula’s fighters were also hanged by marauding imperialists during the rebellion.
Leading lawyer, writer and former government advisor Pettinah Gapah says writes that; “Executions on our land were carried out between 1973 and 1975, when the Liberation War was at its peak and a total of 87 people were hanged. That’s more than a quarter of all the people who have been hanged since Nehanda and Kaguvi in 1898! In three years!!’
“Between 1975 and 1982 there were no executions and then, in a development that should surprise absolutely no one, they started up again. During Gukurahundi”, she adds.
In addition, she says: “The death penalty was introduced for one reason and one reason only. It is and has always been an instrument of state control. It is why treason, sometimes interpreted as nothing more than the desire to change the government, attracts the death penalty’.
She went on to say: “The death penalty is brutal, unjust and wrong, wrong, wrong. It goes against our core values as Zimbabweans’.
Veritas, a local NGO funded by the Swedish Foreign Office and the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office is on record saying the death penalty act is inhuman and has more unintended victims outside its intended targets. It added it affects the victim’s children, and family on top of the victim themselves.
The pressure group has been calling for a re-trial of all prisoners on death row in Zimbabwe.
The last known hangman, a white South African, Edward Milton would be flown into the country to do the job and leave.
Some reports say an unnamed Malawian took over but was hesitant and remorseful about his job and Correctional Services had to persuade him to retire.
The South African quit after executing two dangerous armed robbers in 2005 at Chikurubi Prison, a maximum-security facility outside Harare.
Chidhumo and Masendeke had murdered a prison guard while escaping detention from the same facility referred to as ‘gulag’ for its inhumane conditions which are filthy, freezing, and overcrowded. The food is inedible and there are maggots and rats too.
Former British mercenary Simon Mann and his entourage languished in this facility.
Later, in 2010, the government through the Department of correctional services flighted an advertorial in the press for a hangman confirmation that the deposed
President Mugabe had plans to resume executions.
Virginia Mabhiza, then Secretary in the Ministry of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs confirmed that “people are very interested”.
Boxes upon boxes filled up with people’s CVs for the job in a move that set tongues wagging. Both men and women applied.
Could a normal person want and live off proceeds from a job as a hangman?
Further and albeit legal, what would it mean in the eyes of God?
These were some serious questions because Zimbabwe is largely a Christian nation.
Whichever way one looks at it, it must be noted that Zimbabwe’s economy which is forever in the doldrums had the Bearer Cheque then and it was reeling in the Intensive Care Unit. Jobs became scarce and getting the next meal on the table became a Herculean task. The hangman’s job was handy.
Now, with President Munangagwa as the leader, there is little belief the death penalty will return despite calls in a favour. With the killings in limbo, it effectively commutes death sentences to life imprisonment.
Inmates on death row will forever live in fear of when the Grim Ripper visits. There is no closure for them. Most have been reported to lose their mind in the prolonged wait. Each time a prison gate is opened, hearts leap in anticipation of Doomsday.
George Manyonga, Bright Gwashinga and James Dube are notable jail alumni who have languished for over a decade on death row.
As a consequence, moralists point to President Mungangagwa’s aversion to killing prisoners as commendable even though many are in favor of the return.
I feel his hand in stopping the pratice put him on a high pedestal morally and will forever stand out shining markedly on his legacy in addition to proving that Robert Mugabe was a mere mortal not a deity who could not rule forever unchallenged.
Mugabe had hovered on the Zimbabwean body politik for four facades so much so that it even became unthinkable and far-fetched that anyone could take up power and occupy State House.
In the end, Munangagwa challenged him after 37 years of ruinous rule. Mugabe died a bitter old man, blinded by a lack of hindsight to know when to leave the political stage and greed for power.
Zimbabwe has witnessed many shocking gruesome murders triggered by politics, love entanglements known as crimes of passion, and ritualistic killings among other human vices.
These have been happening consistently, persistently and citizens cannot just look away.
In the runner-up to the Tapiwa Makore verdict, Moreblessing Ali, a political activist in the opposition was found dead in a well in Chitungwiza allegedly killed by a spiteful boyfriend in a murder that torched a political storm culminating with the detention of Job Sikhala, an opposition party lawmaker and lawyer for representing the family of the slain woman.
She was found dismembered and decomposing in a well and her remains are still unburied half a year since her unfortunate demise.
In the wake of the death sentence, only last week a vengeful and jealous lover killed his ex-girlfriend’s new lover adding fuel to the debate on the return of the death penalty to also punish perpetrators.
Globally, the death penalty is largely seen as archaic with no place in modern democratic societies.
Regionally, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) has 16 member states. Of these 7 have completely abolished the death penalty. One country continues to carry out executions. 26 African countries have completely abolished the penalty.
The rest have the penalty in books but hardly implement it despite intermittent calls to bring it back in the wake of serious crimes.
According to Amnesty International, China kills more people than the rest of the world combined per year. Sometimes, it employs the firing squad where convicts are made to stand in the line of fire.
Amnesty International says two-thirds of the world’s countries have abolished the death penalty in law or practice in moves aided and bolstered by positions taken by organizations such as the European Union and the Council of Europe.
Further, it says 579 executions were recorded in 18 countries in 2021 with China, Iran, Egypt and Syria at the front row. However, of them all, China is the leading executioner.
In South Africa, the last execution took place in 1989 following which President Frederick de Klerk put a stop.
In America, many states have abolished the practice or placed a moratorium on killings. Public support has declined such that in 1980, 80% of Americans were pro-death penalty. In 2017, the figure dropped to 55%.
Worldwide, methods that had been used in death penalty cases include beheading, hanging, lethal injection, electrocution, shooting, lethal gas, firing squad.
Meanwhile, the probability of witnessing a lifeless cadaver in Zimbabwe’ s hangman chambers rests on thin ice. President Munangagwa who is completely against the practice holds the key and is central in abolishing the death penalty.
In spite of his known feelings on the death penalty, the newly-minted Criminal Law Codification and Reform Amendment Bill known as the Patriotic Act that he assented to into law is contradictory to his belief anyways.
It has a clause that dispenses the same death penalty on citizens seen to be ‘wilfully injuring the sovereignty and national interest of Zimbabwe’.
President Munangagwa can only contradict himself so long, conveniently refusing one while embracing the other, yet both have the same potency.
The statutes can only be seen under the same lenses now as instruments of State to control and purge perceived enemies.
Zimbwabwe has ratified numerous international frameworks such as the UN Charter on Human Rights and is a party to the International Covenant in Civil and Political Rights( ICCPR) which is against executions.
But the question is will Zimbabwe stay the course of abolition on death penalty given that government machinery is going full steam ahead printing new repressive statutes at the drop of a hat?
Surely, we can’t say kumbaya in this teapot-shaped country as it gallops towards a general election next month which is yet another litmus test for the will of the people.
Image Credit: REUTERS/Philimon Bulawayo
