by Tinashe Madava
Southern Africa is at a crossroads as states differ on the use of the death penalty for certain capital crimes amid calls by human rights groups and others to scrap it throughout the region.
South Africa and Namibia, the newly born democracies, have abolished the death penalty while other countries in the region argue that it is necessary to curb increasingly violent crimes.
Amnesty International, a global human rights body which has been campaigning for the abolition of the death sentence worldwide, has constantly accused countries administering capital punishment of violating the individual’s right to life.
Most human rights organisations oppose capital punishment for brutalising those involved in the process (i.e. hangmen and the victim), saying that it can result in the execution of the innocent and, ultimately, a violation of the right to life. More importantly, human rights activists say death penalty brutalises the whole society because it is done in the name of the citizens and the country.
In Malawi, “the death penalty is mandatory for prisoners convicted of murder or treason, and is optional for rape. Anyone convicted of robbery with violence, house breaking or burglary must be sentenced either to death or to life imprisonment, says the Malawian Penal Code.
Any offense carrying the death penalty used to be tried in “traditional courts” where the defendant did not have the benefit of being represented by a lawyer and presided over by judges who were not adequately trained to guarantee a fair trial. Furthermore, the accused could not call any witnesses during the reign of Kamuzu Banda.
Traditional courts were stripped of the powers to try cases carrying the death penalty by the current government of Bakili Muluzi which came into power in 1994. However, capital punishment is still administered in Malawi.
In Zambia, the death penalty has existed since the country’s independence in 1964. It is applied to cases of treason, murder and “aggravated” robbery. The judges, however, have the power to decide on which cases warrant the death penalty.
Ultimately, it is the state president who signs the death warrant–and current President Frederick Chiluba has not done so since coming into power in 1990. But, an official at the Zambian High Commission in
Zimbabwe recently confirmed that the death penalty is still in force in the country.
The manifesto of Chiluba’s political party, Movement for Multi-party Democracy (MMD), says the party is against the death penalty, but “Zambia seems undecided” on the issue, writes Barbara Lopi in an article, “Zambia’s death penalty lives on,” published by the Daily Mail, a Zambian newspaper.
The death penalty, which is enforced in Zimbabwe for prisoners convicted of murder and treason with no “extenuating circumstances,” was abolished in South Africa immediately after President Nelson Mandel a came to power at the tum of the decade. However, there has been considerable support for the reinstatement of the death penalty in South Africa because of the increase in violent crime.
Zimbabwe’s Minister of Justice Legal and Parliamentary Affairs, Emmerson Mnangagwa, who was once on the death row under the Rhodesian government of Ian Smith, says he personally does not support the death penalty. “I don’t support the death penalty because I know what it is like to be on the death row,” he said in an interview with the Financial Gazette.
Urging public pressure and debate on the issue, Mnangagwa said that the death penalty will exist in
Zimbabwe until the general public changes its mind. The Zimbabwean government has been under immense pressure from human rights groups to abolish capital punishment.
Botswana still administers the death penalty to those found guilty of murder and serious armed robbery.
An official at the Botswana High Commission in Zimbabwe, Swift Mpoloka, pointed out that recent consultations done in the country to determine whether capital punishment should be abolished, have indicated that the majority of Batswana want it to stay.
“There is an increase in crime probably because our police are not armed,” says Mpoloka, adding that lifting the death penalty might fan the already high crime wave in Botswana.
In Namibia, where the death penalty was abolished, there has been considerable support for the reintroduction of capital punishment as revealed by the recent findings of the Commission of Inquiry into the More Effective Combating of Crime, writes Tyappa Namutewa of The Namibian.
“The death penalty is regarded by a growing number of Namibians as the only effective and appropriate sentence for cruel, inhuman and degrading crimes of violence,” says Namutewa.
Namutewa also reveals that there was a general feeling that the rights of the accused and convicted persons were over-emphasised at the expense of the victims, their witnesses and generally law-abiding members of the society.
But, human rights groups are calling on all countries in the region to abolish capital punishment, arguing that it leaves no room for the rehabilitation of the offender and does not reduce political violence.
Countries administering the death penalty in the region argue that contrary to claims by the human rights groups, capital punishment helps reduce crime since it is “an unmatched way of deterring murderers … and a necessary evil.” (SARDC)
