‘Don’t lose hope on Dzamara’

By Blessings Mashaya

United States Ambassador to Zimbabwe Harry Thomas has urged missing pro-democracy activist Itai Dzamara’s family not to give up.

Dzamara — popular for his Occupy Africa Unity Square anti-President Robert Mugabe protests — has been missing for 17 months, after he was abducted.

Thomas said the United States will stand by the family in their efforts to get the former journalist back.

“The US places the protection of human rights at the centre of our foreign policy. Dzamara family, we stand by your right to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly,” he posted on his Facebook page.

Thomas wrote that he was “meeting Patson (Itai’s brother) and reiterating my wish to be able to dine with his brother who disappeared in March 2015 following peaceful solitary protest marches in Harare”.

Dzamara was getting a haircut at a barbershop in Glen View on March 9 last year, when five unidentified men seized him, shoved him into a car and sped off.

Despite police tasking an investigations team, there have been no leads about his whereabouts.

Commenting on his meeting with Thomas, Patson told the Daily News that “Mugabe and his minions have failed to protect the people they purportedly lead. Thomas’s continued raising of Itai’s issue is commendable”.

Patson said the Zanu PF government has not dealt with Itai’s case satisfactorily.

“Ever since the heinous abduction of Itai by what we have established to be State security agents (Military Intelligence), Zimbabwe’s government has not engaged the Dzamara family neither has it issued any satisfactory statement regarding Itai’s missing,” he said.

“Just last week, I petitioned the president for the second time over Itai. Mugabe and his government have virtually decided to ignore the obligation they carry to account for this country’s citizens. Daily News