Harassment of Coltart catalogued
The Zimbabwean
Here we continue with the REDRESS report on human rights abuses experienced by opposition MPs and election candidates. This is what happened to David Coltart, Bulawayo South MP, and MDC Shadow Minister and Secretary for Legal Affairs. Harassment of Coltart began early on. In May 2000 when he attempted to register his candidacy for the Movement for Democratic Change, the Registrar General tried to bar his nomination, forcing Coltart to prove he was a Zimbabwean and not a British citizen.
In June 2000, about a week before the election, Coltart was warned that his home would be burned. At the same time, 10 of his polling agents were detained illegally for 24 hours by self-styled war veterans, lectured and threatened.
One agent, Patrick Nabanyama, was abducted on June 19 in the presence of his wife and children. He has never been seen again and is feared dead. Eight war veterans were subsequently arrested, but later pardoned under the October 2000 amnesty. They faced trial for murder but with no body, they were found not guilty.
In August 2000, after Coltart filed legal papers in the trial of MDC president Morgan Tsvangirai, Robert Mugabe declared on television there was no place for him in Zimbabwe.
Some 14 armed police and CIO agents raided Coltart’s home on October 4 that year, threatening his sons, aged 8 and 10, who were alone. Coltart’s wife returned and managed to keep the police and CIO outside until her husband arrived. The officers then produced an illegally obtained warrant to search for ‘broadcasting equipment, aircraft, boats and safes’. They found nothing.
On November 5, 2001 Cain Nkala, the Chairman of the War Veterans Association, was abducted. When Coltart returned from a visit to New York a week later, police publicly accused Coltart and threatened retribution.