Police in custody of Zimbabwe’s health

Thousands of Zimbabweans today are travelling on Emergency Travel Documents, commonly referred to as ETDs. The reason is not because they can’t afford or do not want passports, but rather the ministry of home affairs has been failing to issue people with their rightful documents due to a lack of capacity to do so.

Several ministries that are important to the smooth running of our country are on their knees. These include the ministries of health, education, agriculture, local government and finance not to mention defence and the thorny home affairs.

This is typical of the breakdown of functionality at the heart of central government in Zimbabwe. Nothing is working and nothing is happening. Even the eagerly awaited government of national unity which most Zimbabweans saw as a way out of the abyss has failed to take off.

That said, when it comes to the button sticks wielded by the police, the torture cells in the dilapidated police stations dotted around the country - especially in the “used to be urban” centres - the ministry of home affairs seems to by at least marginally functional.

They say that a bad tradesman always blames his tools, he does not blame himself. The ZANU PF government has been apportioning blame left right and centre except at themselves. Nothing has been their making and everything is the work of enemies of the state; of which countless lists have been compiled with a view for meting out punishment.

The ministry of home affairs is one government department that never used to be that important. In a country like Zimbabwe ministries such as tourism, finance, industry and commerce have always been more in the lime light than small police units. Not many people even knew where the famous Depa (affectionate name for Tomlinson Deport) was located.

I can still remember in late 1980s and early 1990s when my uncle Wilbert Chihuri was the director general of the formerly Zimbabwe Tourist Development Corporation ZTDC, now called the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority and headed by Karikoga Kaseke. He was a very highly regarded individual who probably held more say than the commissioner of police today.

That’s just how much things have changed in Zimbabwe. The way things are is such that the police are more important than even nurses and doctors. I do not mean to say that the police are nothing but picture this, nurses and doctors save lives while the police are there only to protect and keep them!
Even when a person is severely assaulted, the police may be called in simply to investigate the cause of the assault but they would still have to quickly pass the victim into the custody of nurses and doctors who must ensure that the person lives.

Today in Zimbabwe the keepers of lives are now the savers or the takers of them because they have been transformed into a tool that can be used for that purpose. If the police want you to live, you live, if they want you to be hurt again you can be hurt and quite badly so! You only need to belong to the opposition to experience that.

As for nurses and doctors well, their status and relevance has been severely eroded because the hospitals are now death centres as opposed to the health centres. No one cares if one is a nurse or a doctor especially when the patients are as much in control of their own survival as the health professionals at their bedside.

For example, if a patient brings their own medicines to the hospital the nurses will simply check on them! In that kind of situation how can they be the last line of life? Health in hospitals is now in the hands of the patients just as much as the nurses.

Unfortunately it is not the case with the police because instead of merely looking after people they can now also look for people and that can mean serious trouble.

This returns me to the thorny issue of the ministry of home affairs and why the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) is adamant that they get it. Its not about equitable distribution of ministries, it is about the ministry and what it has been proven to be capable of doing that the MDC fear leaving it in the hands of ZANU PF.

Most of the MDC leaders have all at one point or another suffered at the hands of the police and they just do not want to take anymore chances. Under ZANU PF the budget for the police force has overtaken those of health and education. Most of the spending has gone towards acquiring repressive tools such water canons and anti-riot gear and tear gas canisters.

This has seen the health delivery system being completely compromised while the energies of the government are wasted on ensuring the police are well equipped to brutalise their own people. The education system has been equally run down because there is no longer any focus on that very essential foundation of the nation’s fabric.

In any other circumstance politicians would be clamouring to run the ministries of health or education or industry and commerce or finance, not the police.

Zimbabwe does not even have a department for immigration as it were, only customs officials who double up as immigration officials. That’s just how insignificant the ministry is supposed to be. But enter the police into the equation and it all changes.

With people leaving the country in droves there is no scope for a fully fledged immigration supervisory authority, and rightly so. Could an emigration unit put an end to the exodus then?

I really hope that the MDC - as badly as they seem to need the police on their side - genuinely want to transform the force into the former professional and highly acclaimed body that it used to be. It would be really sad if the police under the MDC auspices would continue to be the same ferocious tool of repression with new targets.

Given the history of African politics I would not rule that out completely. As glamorous and seemingly faultless opposition parties have been, they often turn into monsters once drenched and intoxicated with political power. Only time will tell.

And lastly to the passport or ETD saga week, surely it should have never been an issue at all. Morgan Tsvangirai is a man of the people and instead of mourning about someone of his stature not having a passport, he should have seized the opportunity to reconnect with the ordinary hardworking people of Zimbabwe who do not have passports, not by will or by design, but by the denial of a careless government.

There are so many Zimbabweans who are using ETD’s more often than they have used real passports and they also deserve to have the passports. Someone like Tsvangirai and his world acclaim would never be stranded anywhere on this planet just because he held no passport and events of this week can serve as testimony.

This is how our leaders lose the bigger picture of things. This is a real cause for concern in our country because a passport does not allow access to a person, it is the authorities of the country into which the person is entering that can determine the entry.

Similarly, in the scurry for the ministry of home affairs, the significance of the health and education system of our nation have been consigned to secondary status.

As long our politicians continue to have their priorities elsewhere i.e. passports and ministries, our problems are never going to end. What guarantee is that even if the issue of the ministry of home affairs is resolved another thorny issue will not emerge? What would happen then to the government of national disunity? Cry Zimbabwe the beloved country.

* Silence Chihuri writes for the NewZimbabwe.com among other online publications and is currently resident in Scotland. He can be contacted on [email][email protected]
* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/