NEW YORK (ABP) — The cholera outbreak that has killed thousands in Zimbabwe should be considered a crime against humanity and laid at the feet of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, an international doctors’ group said in a new report.
Physicians for Human Rights released the report at Jan. 13 press conferences in New York and South Africa.
This Zimbabwean child suffers from a severe skin condition caused by malnutrition. (PHOTO/Physicians for Human Rights)
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In a preface to the 54-page document, the group “rightly calls into question the legitimacy of a regime that, in the report’s words, has abrogated the most basic state functions in protecting the health of the population.”
The preface was signed by former Irish premier and U.N. human-rights officer Mary Robinson, retired Anglican archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa and former U.N. chief prosecutor Richard Goldstone. It notes, “As the report documents, the Mugabe regime has used any means at its disposal, including politicizing the health sector, to maintain its hold on power. Instead of fulfilling its obligation to progressively realize the right to health for the people of Zimbabwe, the government has taken the country backwards, which has enabled the destruction of health, water, and sanitation — all with fatal consequences.”
The document is the product of a December trip to Zimbabwe by a group of four human-rights activists, including two public-health physicians. It details the gradual destruction of the nation’s public-health system — once considered one of the best in Africa — to the point where virtually all hospitals are closed and the most basic public sanitation and health needs go unmet.
Zimbabwe has been in an economic free-fall since 2000, when Mugabe's regime began seizing the country's largely white-owned corporate farms. Food productivity in a nation once considered the breadbasket of southern Africa has plummeted along with average life expectancy, which is now the lowest in the world at 36 years of age. Meanwhile, malnutrition, inflation and unemployment have soared.
The breakdown of sanitation infrastructure following nationalization of municipal water systems has led to the cholera outbreak. There is virtually no clean drinking or bathing water in many areas of the country.
The level green area in the middle of this photograph is vegetation thriving on human and animal waste that has flowed into a Zimbabwean river that leads into Lake Chivero — the main water source for Harare, the nation's capital. (PHOTO/Physicians for Human Rights)
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According to the World Health Organization, at least 40,000 Zimbabweans have contracted cholera from water-borne bacteria. On the day the report was released, the group confirmed that Zimbabwe’s death toll from cholera has exceeded 2,000.
The report recommended that the U.N. take over Zimbabwe’s public-health system, and that the Mugabe regime be investigated by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity.
“Heedless of concern for the population of Zimbabwe from world leaders and groups such as PHR [Physicians for Human Rights], the government has denied access to the country, detained journalists, tortured human-rights activists, and even refused visas to former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, U.S. President Jimmy Carter, and [South African human-rights activist and wife of Nelson Mandela] Graça Machel,” the report continued.
“PHR’s team members legally entered the country and were transparent about the purpose of conducting a health assessment. Nevertheless, the government apparently planned and then falsely reported their arrest at the end of the investigation. Such actions are a desperate attempt by Robert Mugabe to conceal the appalling situation of his country’s people and to prevent the world from knowing how his government’s malignant policies have led to the destruction of infrastructure, widespread disease, torture, and death.”
Mugabe has blamed Western sanctions against his regime for the food shortages that have contributed to Zimbabwe’s public-health disaster. His government has been deadlocked since September on a power-sharing agreement with the chief opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai.
"The Mugabe regime has used any means at its disposal, including the politicization of the health sector, to maintain its hold on power," the report said.
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Robert Marus is managing editor and Washington bureau chief for Associated Baptist Press.