Hague Must Kick Out This Zimbabwean Terror Spook
Mark Wallace reveals the true face of Mugabe's henchmen. And it's time to kick them out of Britain.
19 Jul 2011, 08:00
Evil personified
It is common knowledge that the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) is Robert Mugabe's personal secret police force. False arrests, torture, public beatings, murder - you name it, if Mugabe wanted it done then the CIO were not just willing but enthusiastic to help.
Despite the Movement for Democratic Change entering a power-sharing government and making some improvements, the CIO continues to harass opposition activists almost unchecked. For example, only last week the authorities co-ordinated the disappearance of a regional MDC chairman. In practice, the CIO it is a Zanu PF department controlled directly by Mugabe rather than a department of the state.
Decades of abuse have built public resentment (and fear) of the CIO - so it's no surprise that there is huge interest in a recent leak which has led to hundreds of CIO staff and operatives being publicly named for the first time. SW Radio Africa, which obtained the list, has been reading out the names of up to 480 CIO members live on air in regular batches.
The public response was telling. As soon as the lists came out, news sites in the Zimbabwean diaspora, online forums and South African newspapers started to receive a mounting torrent of information about the past activities and crimes of people named on the list. The Spartacus effect has started to swing into action, and people are speaking out now that the perpetrators of so much horror have been named.
In some cases, that has allowed for previously rumoured stories of atrocities to be filled out, such as the traumatic tale of an ex-Zanu PF official known as Chikanya. For some reason, her conscience got the better of her last year and she began to speak publicly about her crimes, much of which involved torturing and murdering MDC activists as part of a Zanu PF gang. A prominent member of this gang was, she claimed, a man named Farai Machekanyang. Sure enough, Farai Machekanyang appears on the newly released CIO staff list as a Deputy Intelligence Officer.
Soon after her public confession, Chikanya was found dead, her corpse left floating in a dam.
Other information has also emerged which should be acted on in the UK. Perhaps most disturbingly, one of those on the list as a CIO "operative" - Bright Kupemba - is reported to be working in London as a member of staff at the Zimbabwean Embassy. It may come as no surprise that spooks make up part of the diplomatic population in London, but it is surely unacceptable that an officer of one of the world's most murderous and ruthless organisations should be living freely in Britain while he and his colleagues conspire to oppress people back in Zimbabwe.
Yet again we see the power of transparency to destabilise tyranny. It is a simple thing to send an Excel file to a radio station, but whoever did so has rocked the CIO to its core. Now that this brave person has revealed at least some of the inner secrets of Mugabe's regime, we must make sure that their risk is not wasted, and that the CIO is dismantled as soon as possible. It may be a small step, but expelling Bright Kupemba from Britain would be a good start.
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Mugabe is Southern Africa's problem, and as the former colonial power we must not assume that we can poke our noses into the sovereign problems of Rhodesia, sorry Zimbabwe.
19/07/2011 12:33If we and others are set against Mugabe and his murderous regime then we need to do this by the book, unless we have learnt nothing from the debacles that are Afghanistan and Iraq.
The UN is the global talking shop, so let the UN start the ball rolling, let the UN engage with its membership and discuss the advisability of overthrowing Mugabe and his party and supplanting the cemented society that he has created that owes allegiance to him and party ZANU.
The UK regrettably placed Mugabe in power and we should have seen the way things wee going with the subsuming of ZIPRA and the cult that became Mugabe. The land grabs were just a way station on this madman's road to a bright socialist, but African nirvana.
Whilst I every sympathy for Zimbabwean's white and black, it's not our problem and lets dump it were it belongs and let's just see what the talking shop does. It may well resonate and send a message.