The sad story told by the wife of Zimbabwe's Assisant Police Commissioner, Todd Jangara, allegedly seriously beaten by her husband, is a stark reminder of what happens when the rule of law is so utterly compromised. This unhappy woman and her family would once have rejoiced, danced and ululated when her husband was promoted to high office. She appears to have known that her husband's first responsibility was to uphold the rule of law and see to it that every Zimbabwean, wives of police officers not excepted, could seek justice Alas! Power corrupts... and we all know how that sentence ends. I wonder if this woman who would almost certainly have been a loyal, dancing and ululating follower of Robert Mugabe's appalling ZANU (PF) party; possibly even a leading light in the women's movement within that degraded organization, understands or regrets what is being done to her sisterhood in a rival politcal party by people like her policeman husband?
History, in this tragedy, speaks loud with the name, Todd, invoked through a court report of the appearance in the dock of the alleged bully. Jangara's first name is Todd. It would be almost certain that Jangara's parents knew of or may even have benefited from the fine, humanitarian work done for oppressed black people of Rhodesia by the late, former Sourthern Rhodesian Prime Minister, Garfield Todd and his wife, Grace. The oppression in Rhodesian days fades almost to insignificance in the light of the cruel acts of Mugabe's goons. If guilty, Jangara, who blames his brothers-in-law for the vicious beatings his wife endured, has exchanged his namesake's noble legacy for one which will go down in history in ignominy.
The saving grace here is that the beaten wife has had the courage to face an apparently malevolent senior policeman, in this case her own husband, in a court formerly unaccustomed to seeing top police lawbreakers, standing as accused in a Chitungwiza Magistrates court.
Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell
