HARARE — President Emmerson Mnangagwa on Monday said he was “appalled” by a televised report showing abuses by security forces in a continuing crackdown.
Mnangagwa, on his official Twitter account, said he was unhappy at the video, broadcast by Sky News, showing security forces hitting a man who had been handcuffed. Mnangagwa said he “instructed that the individuals behind this be arrested.”
Angry protests against the government’s drastic fuel price hikes provoked a harsh crackdown by police and military in which over a dozen people have been killed and 300 wounded, scores by gunshot wounds, according to doctors and rights groups.
Long after the protests ended, the military clampdown continues with forces going house to house to carry out arbitrary arrests, beatings, torture, abductions and rapes, according to rights groups. Many opposition figures and civic leaders have gone into hiding.
The crackdown continued Monday, with witnesses, human rights groups and the opposition reporting abuses by the military, the police and ruling party gangs, especially in working class and poor suburbs across the country.
Mnangagwa, who briefly brought hope to crisis-weary Zimbabweans when he took over from longtime ruler Robert Mugabe in November 2017 through a military coup, encouraged “those impacted to contact the authorities and file an official complaint.”
Sky News correspondent John Sparks’ eyewitness account told how he saw a police officer striking a man’s head with a truncheon on Saturday, accompanied by a soldier and a plain clothes security agent who slapped, punched and kicked the man in broad daylight.
The Sky News crew then followed the group on Harare’s Chiremba Road as the officers ordered the victim to run, then bundled him into a kombi.
Caught on camera, the police officer then dragged the man out and the group started hitting his face as he sat handcuffed on the ground while onlookers covered their eyes.
Another man in handcuffs was then pulled from the van and ordered to drive the commandeered kombi.
Mnangagwa’s call has been met with skepticism, as last week he promised to investigate reports of abuse by the security forces when he returned from a visit abroad, yet the crackdown continues.
Some Zimbabweans questioned why Mnangagwa is only showing concern about a report of abuse by foreign media, when local media and NGOs have been reporting such violence against civilians for more than a week
Others questioned the authenticity of messages on Mnangagwa’s Twitter account after his spokesman George Charamba on January 23 told reporters that “the president was drawing my attention to an attempt to, as it were, to put words into his mouth using his Twitter account. So, don’t always believe that which is coming through.” This followed a tweet by Mnangagwa calling for national dialogue and criticising security forces for being heavy handed.
But Zimbabwe’s information ministry later issued a statement confirming Mnangagwa’s Twitter handle as “the legitimate voice of the President.”
“Nothing goes on there but that which represents his views and positions on issues and that which he has explicitly cleared,” the ministry said.
Some people say that Mnangagwa’s Twitter statements do not reflect the reality of the crackdown on the ground, suggesting it is an operation by public relations consultants out of tune with with Mnangagwa’s real thoughts – which are less than benign.
“This account is run by a bunch of tone deaf people who are so stuck up in their quest to present E.D. (Mnangagwa) as a reformer that they are prepared to invent this fake E.D. who doesn’t exist anywhere else except on this handle! George Charamba was right, despite the protests by @InfoMinZW!” said Zimbabwean UK-based journalist Innocent Chofamba Sithole in response to Mnangagwa’s tweet.
