Zimbabwe
US Court holds Mugabe liable for murder

afrol News, 1 November - A United States District Court Judge in New York yesterday ruled that Zimbabwe's governing political party, ZANU-PF, was liable for murdering and torturing its political opponents in the run-up to Zimbabwe's June 2000 parliamentary elections. 

Washington attorney Charles J. Cooper, one of the plaintiffs' lawyers, hailed the decision as a victory for justice: "These plaintiffs came to this Court because they had nowhere else to turn. Savagely beaten and terrorized at home, they came here looking for justice and the rule of law."

The court ordered judgment in favor of the victims of ZANU-PF's campaign of violence, all of whom were targeted because of their peaceful support for Zimbabwe's burgeoning opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). 

The lead plaintiff, Adella Chiminya, was suing on behalf of her husband, a senior MDC campaign advisor whom the Complaint alleges was burned alive by ZANU-PF assassins while campaigning last spring. Another named plaintiff, Elliot Pfebve, was an MDC candidate in the 2000 elections who survived numerous assassination attempts, and who is suing on behalf of his brother, whom the Complaint describes as having been tortured and murdered during one of those attempts. 

Pfebve expressed gratitude for yesterday's ruling: "We thank the American justice system for holding out some hope for human rights victims everywhere. This decision lets Mugabe and his henchmen know that the civilized world will not allow their political terror to go unpunished."

The court held that the plaintiffs' uncontested allegations "amply demonstrate that ZANU-PF did not consist merely of loosely connected, haphazardly organized individuals or a misguided mob of marauders randomly roving and unleashing terror throughout Zimbabwe. Rather, Plaintiffs’ factual assertions and supporting evidence suggest that in carrying out the drive of organized violence and methodic terror portrayed here ZANU-PF worked in tandem with Zimbabwe government officials, under whose direction or control many of the wrongful acts were conceived and executed." 

The court held that ZANU-PF had been validly served with legal process when President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, who is also First Secretary of ZANU-PF, was served two copies of a Summons and Complaint while making a fund-raising speech in Harlem last September. 

The court ruled that although Mugabe was personally immune from the suit in his capacity as head of state, he was not immune from being served with a complaint in his capacity as First Secretary of ZANU-PF. 

The decision by Judge Victor Marrero of the Southern District of New York was handed down in an exhaustive 130-page opinion analyzing what it described as the "unsettled" law of head of state immunity. 

While holding that Mugabe was protected from being personally sued by the head of state immunity doctrine, Marrero warned that the days in which such immunity would continue to prevail may be numbered. 

Citing to precedents involving fallen strongmen such as Ferdinand Marcos, Radovan Karadzic, Augusto Pinochet, and Slobodan Milosevic, Marrero issued a warning: "These precedents instruct that resort to head-of-state and diplomatic immunity as a shield for private abuses of the sovereign’s office is wearing thinner in the eyes of the world and waning in the cover of the law. The prevailing trend teaches that the day does come to pass when those who violate their public trust are called upon, in this world, to render account for the wrongs they inflict on innocents."

Source: Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)

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