In Zimbabwe, passing any law is a three stage process. With regards to the proposed NGO Bill, the first two readings have already taken place. The latter, in which the Parliament´s Committee on Legal Issues adds its amendments, took place yesterday. Hence, the exact outcome is yet to be released, and will not be until some time next week. Then, most likely in a week or two, so as to make it look as if this very restrictive legislation is passed in a perfectly democratic way, the third and final reading will see the Bill through to become a new addition to Zimbabwean law.
Leave – or go underground
The proposed NGO Bill will make most of the member organisations of the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum – and the forum itself – illegal. This will leave the organisations with only three options, all clearly detrimental to their security, their general working conditions and thus to their ability to continue their activities for the sake of human rights, democracy and the rule of law in Zimbabwe. The first option discussed among the organisations is what they call regionalisation, i.e. to leave the country and continue their activities from abroad. The second is to negotiate mergers with those among the organisations that will remain legal, even after the introduction of the new Bill. The likelihood that legal organisations will welcome the illegal ones, though, is yet to be seen. Also, the price in terms of adjustments required may well be too high for many. Finally, the third option is to go underground and continue working as they have been doing so far, but from now on at a much higher risk, and thus with a completely different degree of secrecy and security measures taken.
Look to Zambia
The proposed Zimbabwean NGO Bill follows the pattern of many countries, both in the region and elsewhere, of clamping down on civil society activity, and in no area more so, it seems, than in the human rights sector. In Zambia, the authorities have made it very clear that they are fed up with NGOs acting like political parties of the opposition and thus undermining the power and authority of the authorities. Zimbabwe might be a particular case in point, though, since the NGOs there have been particularly successful in their lobbying, for instance to force their previous President Frederick Chiluba to give up on his attempt to amend the Constitution for him to be able to stand for a third term. The Oasis Forum, the same alliance of NGOs that achieved this, also managed to remove Chiluba´s immunity, so that investigations could begin on the allegations of corruption against him and some of his closest aides and allies. The case has now gone to court.
Absent state, present civil society
In Uganda, and especially in the north, NGOs have pretty much overtaken the role of the authorities in terms of securing the most basic needs of the population at large. Hence, the majority of the people are more familiar with organisations like World Vision, UNICEF and the UN´s so-called World Food Programme than they are with whatever their own authorities are doing. Without the services of these and other organisations, the population would have been left in total isolation, in a war zone, and with no protection, no food and no other kind of support.
