Mhlanga at UN Geneva vs Mahere in 2023 is the epitome of our 1 step forward 3 back. W Mukori

 @ Gabriel Manyati

When speaking in Geneva becomes a crime in Harare

The contrast is as stark as it is unsettling. In Geneva, the atmosphere is defined by a curated diplomatic silence, where the soft rustle of briefing papers and the measured cadence of human rights rapporteurs suggest a world of orderly accountability.

It is a space designed for the clinical examination of state conduct. Yet, for a Zimbabwean citizen like Blessed Mhlanga, the distance between the pristine halls of the Palais des Nations and the humid, tense political climate of Harare is non-existent.

When he stood before an international audience to articulate the lived realities of his compatriots, he was not merely delivering a report. He was performing a constitutional act.

However, the subsequent reaction from the Zimbabwean authorities suggests that in the eyes of the state, such speech is an act of jurisdictional transgression. The anxiety radiating from the capital reveals a profound insecurity.

To the ruling elite, the crime is not the content of the testimony but the audacity of the venue. The question that haunts the Zimbabwean body politic is why a citizen speaking truth to power in a global forum is perceived as a more significant threat than the systemic failures that necessitate such speech.

This hostility toward internationalised dissent is not a modern aberration but a consistent thread in the fabric of Zimbabwean governance.

The current threats against Mhlanga are the latest iteration of a historical project aimed at the total monopolisation of the national narrative.

We have seen this machinery in operation before, most notably in the early 2000s when the state treated independent journalism as an existential threat.

The forced closure of The Daily News in 2003 remains a seminal wound in our democratic memory, representing the physical dismantling of a counter-narrative. That era was defined by a legislative arsenal designed to stifle the inquisitive mind.

The Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act and the Public Order and Security Act served as the twin pillars of a fortress intended to keep the truth in and the world out.

During those crisis years, journalists were not just reporters but were framed as agents of foreign influence, a trope that continues to be recycled with wearying regularity.

Even with the transition of 2017 and the promise of a new dispensation, the structural impulses of the state have remained remarkably static.

While the methods have evolved from the blunt force of the 2000s to more sophisticated forms of reputational management and digital controls, the underlying philosophy is unchanged. The state remains convinced that it owns the story of Zimbabwe.

When the internet was shut down in 2019, it was an admission that the state could no longer compete in the marketplace of ideas and thus chose to burn the market down.

The Geneva episode fits perfectly into this lineage. It reveals a state that equates criticism with destabilisation and transparency with treason.

The irony is that the more the state attempts to manage its image through the intimidation of journalists, the more it confirms the very accusations of authoritarianism it seeks to deny.

It is a cycle of repression where the pursuit of narrative control leads to the further erosion of international legitimacy.

The persecution of speech delivered to international human rights bodies is more than a violation of individual liberty. It is a direct assault on the 2013 Constitution.

Our supreme law is explicit in its protection of the freedom of expression and the right of every citizen to engage with both domestic and international institutions.

When a journalist is threatened for participating in a United Nations process, the state is effectively declaring that certain parts of the Constitution are suspended once a citizen crosses the border.

This creates a profound contradiction. The government frequently cites its adherence to constitutionalism when seeking international investment or diplomatic re-engagement, yet it punishes the exercise of those very constitutional rights when they result in unfavourable optics.

This tension brings us to the core of the sovereignty debate. There are two competing visions of what it means for Zimbabwe to be a sovereign nation.

The first is a democratic sovereignty, where the strength of the nation is derived from the ability of its citizens to critique, engage and improve its institutions.

In this model, the journalist who speaks in Geneva is a patriot because he holds the state to the standards it has publicly committed to upholding. The second vision is narrative sovereignty.

In this darker iteration, the state claims an exclusive right to define reality. It views the national story as private property.

Under this logic, any citizen who offers a different account of the Zimbabwean experience to the international community is viewed as a thief of the national image.

By punishing Mhlanga, the state is attempting to assert a form of sovereignty that excludes the people, effectively arguing that the state is the nation and the nation is the state.

The psychology of this response speaks volumes about the nature of power in Harare. Secure governments do not fear the testimony of a single journalist. Robust institutions do not tremble at the prospect of a briefing in Geneva.

The aggressive reaction to Mhlanga's speech reveals an institutional fragility that no amount of official propaganda can mask. There is a deep-seated fear that if the state loses control over the international narrative, it loses its grip on the mechanisms of political survival.

Consequently, the state frames international criticism as a form of economic sabotage or a threat to national security. This framing is a tactical necessity because it allows the state to bypass the substance of the critique and focus instead on the supposed motives of the critic.

However, the strategy of silencing critics abroad almost always backfires. In the digital age, the attempt to suppress a story only ensures it travels further and faster.

By threatening a journalist for speaking at a global forum, the Zimbabwean authorities have ensured that the human rights situation in the country receives far more scrutiny than it might have otherwise.

It is a self-defeating exercise in power. Instead of addressing the underlying issues raised in Geneva, the state has chosen to provide a fresh example of the very repression that was being discussed.

This suggests a leadership that is more concerned with the appearance of order than the functional reality of justice.

The fate of Blessed Mhlanga is not a solitary concern for the media fraternity. It is a litmus test for the Zimbabwean citizen.

If we accept that the state has the right to punish speech delivered beyond our borders, we are essentially consenting to a form of ideological imprisonment. We are agreeing that our rights as citizens are conditional and geographically bounded.

The democratic future of Zimbabwe depends entirely on whether we retain ownership of our voices.

A nation is not a monolith represented by a single official voice. It is a complex, often discordant choir of millions of people. To silence one voice because it spoke in a different room is to diminish the entire nation.

Ultimately, the integrity of our constitutional order is measured by how the state treats its most vocal critics. True national confidence does not manifest in the silencing of dissent but in the ability to withstand it.

If Zimbabwe is to truly claim its place among the community of nations, it must first stop fearing its own people.

The road to a prosperous and stable republic does not run through the interrogation rooms of the secret police or the threatening statements of government spokesmen. It runs through the unfettered exercise of the rights we gave ourselves in 2013.

We must remember that while the state may occupy the seats of power, the story of Zimbabwe belongs to the people of Zimbabwe, whether they are speaking in the streets of Harare or the halls of Geneva.

----------------Gabriel Manyati is a Zimbabwean journalist and analyst delivering incisive commentary on politics, human interest stories, and current affairs.

One of the great tragedies of our failed political system is our knack to undermine ourselves. We take one step forward and, serpiginously, fuliginously, take two or more steps backward. And, to rub insult to injury, it is the ordinary Zimbabweans who take the forward step and the ruling elite who drag us all back!

In 2023 it was none other than Advocate Fadzayi Mahere, then spokesperson of Zimbabwe’s main opposition party, CCC led by Advocate Nelson Chamisa, who graced the same pristine halls of the Palais des Nations in Geneva Blessed Mhlanga spoke from. 

Mahere ticked all the relevant boxes of being a victim of the Zanu PF brutality - she had spend time in the regime’s notorious prisons. She made a big song and dance of how the Zanu PF regime was ridding roughshod over the citizens denying them they basic freedoms and human rights including the right to free, fair and credible elections. She pretended to care about rigged elections but in reality she and her oppositions fiends did not give a damn!

Mahere had participated in the 2018 Zimbabwe elections and made it clear she and her CCC party were going to participate in the 2023 elections. They knew that Zanu PF was rigging and that participating would give the regime legitimacy. Still they have soldiered on because they also knew that Zanu PF was giving away a few gravy train seats to entice the opposition to participate no matter what. 

And so all the excellent work individuals like Mhlanga were doing to push Zanu PF to accept meaningful democratic changes was being undone by the men and women the nation had entrusted the political power to bring about the political changes the nation is dying for. 

Zimbabwe’s MDC/CCC opposition have not only sold out by failing to implement even one token reform in 26 years but have been conning the nation to participate in flawed elections to perpetuate the Zanu PF dictatorship out of selfish greed. Such treasonous betrayal by the ruling elite, first Zanu PF and now the MDC/CCC opposition, is Zimbabwe’s worst curse!