SAPS must investigate, says AfriForum

Following the ground-breaking judgment in South Africa’s Constitutional Court, which ruled unanimously on 30 October 2014 that the South African Police Service (SAPS) must investigate crimes against humanity perpetrated in Zimbabwe during 2007, AfriForum will now press the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) and SAPS to investigate further charges laid by AfriForum and a human rights activist from Zimbabwe, Mr Ben Freeth, in December last year.

These relate to human rights violations committed by President Mugabe’s ZANU-PF Government against farm workers, commercial farmers and other perceived opponents of the Zimbabwean Government which had occurred over the course of several years.

Yesterday’s Constitutional Court ruling on the ‘Zimbabwe torture case, brought by the Southern Africa Litigation Centre and Zimbabwe Exiles’ Forum, compels South Africa to honour its domestic and international legal obligations, including those related to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

The Rome Statute established four core international crimes: genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression.

The affidavits and evidence submitted by AfriForum to the SAPS and NPA related to people resident on Zimbabwean commercial farms that were specifically protected by an international court order issued by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Tribunal in 2008.

Making grim reading, the affidavits recorded vicious beatings, imprisonment on spurious or fallacious charges in filthy, inhumane jails, the shooting of farm workers and farmers, the theft of homes, farmers’ and farm workers’ houses being set on fire or petrol bombed, and death threats.

Additional criminal activities included the theft or destruction of personal property, the theft or destruction of crops that were still in the ground or had been reaped, the deliberate starvation, maiming or theft of livestock and the destruction of the livelihoods of protected persons.

In all of the commercial farming districts, the modus operandi had been the same, indicating that a deliberate strategy was masterminded at a senior level and adopted by the perpetrators of the crimes who included government ministers, members of the police force and army personnel.

Legal Representative for AfriForum, Willie Spies, said that each attack committed on the deponents was pursuant to or in furtherance of fast-tracking the land reform programme. In every case, the beneficiaries of these SADC-protected commercial farms – or their employees – were involved in the persecution of the deponents.

“Our list comprises 58 known people implicated in crimes against humanity on these SADC-protected farms, all of whom warrant investigation,” said Ben Freeth, spokesperson for SADC Tribunal Rights Watch.

Spies will be writing to the National Prosecuting Authority to demand that investigations resume in the wake of the Constitutional Court ruling. The Zimbabwean