HARARE – Silvia Maphosa, one of at least six people shot dead by the military during post-election protests in Harare on August 1 was executed while pleading for mercy, the Motlanthe Commission probing events of that day heard on Wednesday.
Her sister, Miriam Chidamba, said the 56-year-old had just knocked off from work at the Zimbabwe National Water Authority and was heading home when she was shot through the heart.
“She was shot in the heart and the bullet came out in the back. From information we have, she even tried to plead with the soldier to let her go, but he still fired and killed her. It was just purely out of cruelty, she was just shot by a cruel person,” Chidamba testified.
She said the family had to endure further agony after a pathologist at Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals attempted to falsify Maphosa’s cause of death to claim she had tied from a stab wound.
A death certificate had been produced to the effect, before the family called in lawyers.
“The doctor was not acting professionally. He was getting instructions from higher offices and when the family challenged the entry on the death certificate, with the help of the Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights, the doctor then changed the death certificate and entered that she had been killed owing to a gunshot wound,” she said.
Former South African President Kgalema Motlanthe is heading the seven-member commission appointed by President Emmerson Mnangagwa to look into the events of August 1.
The team that includes Nigerian former Commonwealth secretary-general Emeka Anyaoku, British lawyer Rodney Dixon and Tanzanian former defence forces chief Davis Mwamunyange, has three months to complete its investigations and release findings.
The MDC says the hearings are part of a whitewash to excuse the excesses of the military, while shifting the blame to the party’s supporters who marched in the streets that day demanding the prompt release of presidential election results.
“And for serious people to continue hearing testimony about how people demonstrated, and about how people expressed themselves, without dealing with the critical issue who asked for deployment (of soldiers), who gave live ammunition, and who gave the order to shoot, and who in particular shot, so that they can be interviewed to understand what was going through their mind, and what was their orders. It is a shame that President Motlanthe could lend his name to such a comical show,” MDC spokesman Jacob Mafume said.
The commission also heard from Adrian Munjere, 31, a vendor who operates at the former Ximex Mall. He said he was lucky to be alive after a bullet from an assault rifle fractured his right hand.
Munjere said he witnessed troops firing live rounds to disperse opposition.
“I heard the sound of gun fire and I did not think anything of it. But then later, I felt a warm sensation on my arm, that’s when I saw blood and I realised that I had been shot,” he testified.
“I’m bitter at the whole system,” he told the Voice of America’s Studio 7 after giving testimony. “I’m looking forward to getting compensation because I feel like I can’t use this hand anymore to [do] anything manual or lift anything heavy. It’s not like the compensation I want is going to cover for this damage — no. It’s just so that I can sustain myself.”
There was a bizarre exchange between Munjere and commissioner Charity Manyeruke, a university lecturer known for her Zanu PF leanings.
Manyeruke asked Munjere if he “saw soldiers in a shooting position”.
“Yes, they were in a shooting position.”
“What do you mean?
“They were pointing their guns at people,” Munjere explained.
“Did u see a bullet coming from the gun going directly at people,” asked the political science professor.
Munjere said he was fleeing from the scene and could not be sure.
The commission also heard from Precious Mavenga, a street vendor whose picture showing her lying down with two soldiers standing over her with crude sjamboks went around the world.
She said the MDC supporters left her to her business selling wares on the street.
“There was no violence, so I continued selling until the soldiers arrived. They were not just targeting MDC supporters but beating anyone in sight. I was assaulted by four soldiers and I fell. The beatings continued while I was on the floor. The soldiers said, ‘We’re looking for you vendors, you support the MDC’,” she told the commission.
When commissioner Davis Mwamunyange asked her which party she belonged to, she said she could not answer freely because “police will come after me”.
The dominant voice of witnesses since the start of the oral evidence hearings on Tuesday has been that of Zanu PF supporters, and so it was again on Wednesday.
Zanu PF driver Johannes Mutanda said when an MDC mob laid siege on their provincial offices, burning cars and stoning the building, police just watched.
Stella Matsengarwodzi, another Zanu PF employee, accused MDC vice chairman Tendai Biti and Jim Kunaka, who defected from Zanu PF, of inciting their supporters to cause violence.
The hearings continue at the Cresta Lodge in Harare.
