MDC Alliance MP for Harare West, Joana Mamombe has been charged with treason and appeared in court twice in as many days this week. She becomes the THIRD woman to be charged with treason since the Pioneer Column drove across the Limpopo River in the 1890s.
MDC Alliance deputy treasurer-general Chalton Hwende and political analyst Dr. Pedzisayi Ruhanya erroneously both said Joana Mamombe was the only none after Mbuya Nehanda to be charged with treason. As this report shows, she is the second woman in post-independent Zimbabwe to be so charged. That makes them three women in the history of modern-day Zimbabwe.
Of these three women, one was charged by the colonial administration, one by the Robert Mugabe administration, and the third is Joana Mamombe, charged by the current Mnangagwa administration.
Here is a brief about each woman:
- Mbuya Nehanda
Mbuya Nehanda Charwe Nyakasikana was the spirit medium that was the inspiration behind the 1896-97 first Chimurenga war. She was based in the northern plateau of Mashonaland and was influential in resisting colonial encroachment and she used her religious authority to mobilise the masses against the Europeans. She was born around 1863 and she died in 1898 after being executed by the colonial authorities in Salisbury.
She was a Hera of the Hwata Mufakose Dynasty.
Due to close links between early political structures and religion, Mbuya Nehanda found her influence in the mainstream politics of her time. She was influential in warning the people against accepting the entry of the Europeans in the Mashonaland region.
Mbuya Nehanda was hunted down by the colonial regime of the British South Africa Company due to her widespread influence and her denunciation of colonisation. It is alleged that she was arrested and was brought to Salisbury for the judgment. She was convicted without a trial and was executed in 1898 in Salisbury.
She was hanged on a tree along her neck until she breathed her last.The tree fell in December 2011, leading many to speculate that it was a bad omen signifying that the death of Robert Mugabe was imminent.
2. Jestina Mukoko
Jestina Mukoko is a 52-years old Zimbabwean human rights activist and the director of the Zimbabwe Peace Project. She is a journalist by training and a former newsreader with the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation.
She was born in 1967 in Gweru, Midlands Province.
On 3 December 2008 Jestina Mukoko was abducted during the night from her home in Norton, 40 km west of Harare, by suspected state agents for allegedly being involved in plans for anti government demonstrations.
She was taken away for interrogation after her NGO, the Zimbabwe Peace Project, was accused of recruiting youths for military training with the opposition Movement for Democratic Change.
The Zimbabwe Peace Project had reportedly compiled one of the most detailed records of thousands of incidents of murder, assault, torture, arson and so on, and who the perpetrators were, following the violence unleashed on MDC supporters by the Mugabe regime in 2008.
She was beaten on the soles of her feet with rubber truncheons (allegedly a favourite torture instrument of the regime in Zimbabwe because they leave no marks likely to be visible at later court appearances).
After three days she was handed over to another group of interrogators who claimed they were “law and order” officials. She was threatened with “extinction” if she chose not to be a witness to the alleged cases of military training.
Prominent world figures including Gordon Brown and Condoleezza Rice demanded her release. The so-called “Group of Elders”, including Jimmy Carter, Kofi Annan and Graça Machel, who at the time were being refused admission to Zimbabwe, made an appeal for Mukoko’s release at a news conference in South Africa.
The Zimbabwe High Court ordered the Zimbabwe Republic Police to look for Mukoko. The order was ignored by the police who denied knowledge of her whereabouts.
Meanwhile, Mukoko had been forced to kneel on gravel for hours while being interrogated in an attempt to force her to sign a statement that she had recruited an ex-policeman to the supposed plot. Her medical condition deteriorated and she was eventually given medicine to treat serious allergies. She was forced to read statements to camera and pressurised to admit links to the former policeman Fidelis Mudimu. She overheard someone say they were at the King George VI Barracks outside Harare.
She was eventually told that she and another abductee, her colleague, Broderick Takawera, were in police custody. She was moved around between different police stations and forced to accompany police on searches of her home and office.
On 24 December 2008, the state-run Herald newspaper reported that Mukoko had appeared in court in Harare on charges of attempting to recruit people for military training to try to overthrow the government. She had not been able to consult with lawyers. She appeared in court with seven other abductees, including a 72-year-old man and a two-year-old boy whose father and mother, Violet Mupfuranhehwe and Collen Mutemagawo, were also in detention.
In March 2009, three months after her abduction, Jestina Mukoko was released on bail. Her bail conditions required her to report to her local police station in Norton on a weekly basis and surrender her passport.
On 21 September 2009 the Zimbabwe Supreme Court ordered a permanent stay of criminal proceedings against Jestina Mukoko. Amnesty International welcomed the decision, commenting that the charges were widely believed to have been trumped up by the Mugabe government as part of a wider strategy to silence perceived political opponents.
In October 2018, the High Court ordered the State to pay $150 000 to Jestina Mukoko as compensation for her abduction and torture which she suffered at the hands of State Security agents in that December 2008 ordeal.
Mukoko said the compensation could not atone for the trauma and suffering she went through at the hands of the agents who had been “ruthless, merciless and very evil.”
“It will not make up for lost time as my liberty and all other human rights accorded to me by virtue of being human were unjustifiably curtailed nor will it provide solace for my traumatised family — my mother, son, brothers, sisters-in-law, extended family, friends and other peace-loving citizens,” Mukoko lamented.
She also stated that this ruling sent a clear and strong signal to Zimbabwean authorities who must guarantee impartial justice to victims and put an end to impunity.
3. Joana Mamombe
MDC Alliance member of the House of Assembly for Harare West, Joana Mamombe, was arrested on Saturday, 2 March 2019 in Nyanga. Mamombe (25) had been on the police wanted since mid-January, with police saying she was suspected of inciting protesters who went on to loot private businesses and destroy property worth millions of dollars.
Detectives swooped on the youngest member of the current session of Parliament on Saturday morning as she was rounding up a Parliamentary workshop in Nyanga. Detectives swooped on her as she was about to board a staff vehicle back to Harare, and bundled her onto the back of a Toyota Fortuner for the 270km journey to Harare.
Charges against Mamombe stem from a press conference she held at the Marlborough Civic Center in Harare on January 14 after President Emmerson Mnangagwa increased fuel prices by 300% on January 12.
At that Marborough press conference, the brave MDC Alliance MP called for a peaceful protest march in Harare West which was to be held on January 17 (Ward 16-41) from Pamusasa in Westlea to Mabelreign shops.
She also made seven demands to President Emmerson Mnangagwa, and these were:
- Reversal of the 300% fuel increase by President Mnangagwa
- A robust economic policy based on wide consultation with labour, business and citizens
- Abandonment of the 1:1 rate between bond note and USD
- Zimbabwe to join the Rand Monetary Union.
- Upward review of civil servant salaries
- Central government to provide adequate financial resources to the City of Harare to enable them ensure basic social services
- President Mnangagwa to initiate dialogue with MDC leader Nelson Chamisa
She was charged with treason and appeared in court on Monday and Tuesday this week, whereupon the magistrate remanded her in custody to 19 March. Her lawyers have since approached the High Court for bail.
— Zoom Zim