Staff Reporter
Jailed MDC Youth Secretary For Labour and Social Welfare, Makomborero Haruzivishe, has accused his party of neglecting him and not taking care of his needs while in prison.
Haruzivishe, who in April this year was jailed for 14 months after being convicted for inciting public violence and resisting arrest, lambasted his party’s leadership for riding on his name, while neglecting him to rot in jail.
A relative of Haruzivishe, who recently visited him in prison, said the activist was dejected and bitter that his party, particularly the Youth Assembly, was fighting for positions, while neglecting him and other party members in prison.
“I visited Mako in prison and he was in low spirits. He told me that he expected his party to swiftly lodge an appeal to his 14 months sentence, but to date nothing has been done. He accused the party leadership for fundraising in his name, but converting the proceeds to their own needs. He is regretting sacrificing his freedom for a party that seems not to care about him,” said the relative.
Haruzivishe’s relative added that Mako was angry that the hype #FreeMako had fizzled out and he is now faced with the reality of serving the entire 14 months in jail.
Another source within the MDC Alliance told this publication that when Haruzivishe was imprisoned, the MDC Alliance branches in UK and Sweden raised a substantial amount to challenge his incarceration and the prison term. However, that party’s legal team as advised by Advocate Thabani Mpofu, who warned Chamisa that Haruzivishe’s case was complex and chances of winning the appeal were very slim. Mpofu suggested to Chamisa that it was better that the raised funds be used for other party programmes instead of wasting it on an appeal they would lose.
The same source added that some funds sent by a yet to be established funder through the Legal Division of the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum to assist arrested activists, was used by that CSOs’ Executive Director, Musa Kika to fund his court application, where he was challenging the legality of the extension of Chief Justice Luke Malaba’s extension of service.
Some opposition activists have been accusing the MDC Alliance of using them for their political ends and later abandoning them to languish in prison when arrested. Yvonne Musarurwa, one of the three activists jailed some 20 years for killing a police inspector in 2011 at an MDC rally, dumped the Nelson Chamisa faction to join the MDC T when she was pardoned by President Emmerson Mnangagwa in 2018, citing negligence by the MDC Alliance during her time in prison.
The recently released activist, Tungamirai Madzokere, was deserted by his wife who eloped with another man because she was failing to take care of the family as the party had abandoned them.
