Riots and Minimum Force

Hello All,

I, like many others have now been watching the news carefully today to see if there are any reports on the "negotiations" but, at the time of writing, there does not appear to be anything.

I did see the report on the demonstration by ROHR (Restoration of Human Rights in Zimbabwe). And the subsequent reports of injuries and arrests.. And the photographs of the demonstration.

50 people arrested? 11 Injured? This picture, showing the demonstration does not show a mob of violent people which required aggressive intervention.

I know - I have seen real riotous mobs and, apart from carrying placards and banners, they are certainly not carrying anything offensive nor posing a threat to the public at large.

In point of fact, they seem to be quite a jolly crowd waving and smiling - and exercising their right to freedom of expression... erm I guess that is NOT a right in Zimbabwe at the moment!

But then... if you look a little more closely.. you see what the actual problem is - these people look like they are giving the dreaded MDC open handed salute.

Naturally then, the powers that be felt it necessary to intervene!

And so... enter the riot squad...

Firing teargas (CS ANTI RIOT IRRITANT).. And all hell breaks loose.

Suddenly everyone is running for their lives.

I think it pertinent to say here that police officers are required to uphold the law. And at the moment, the law says you may not protest (Just in case everyone discovers that ZANU-pf is not who they want to govern them). I imagine that the law itself is illegal and the process to make it "law" was illegal and it is a law made by an illegal regime (So yes, on top of everything else - it gets very complex when you start looking at an incident like this!).

But, for the sake of argument, let us just say that this is the law and police officers are required to enforce it. How should they be going about it?

I would tend to think back to my training and remember the definition of "minimum force" and that is as follows:

MINIMUM FORCE - this is the force required to be applied to reach one's objective, applied with a PREVENTATIVE and NOT PUNITIVE intent, and STOPPING WHEN IT IS NO LONGER NECESSARY.

Clearly this principal was not adhered to in this case. Did the police form a line? Did a senior officer address the crowd? Did he/she warn them to disperse? Was an attempt made to make arrests peaceably?

From the reports and pictures, I would say not.

So now, the officers involved in this attack have, themselves, committed an offence - assault and causing a breach of the peace to begin with, dereliction of duty also springs to mind.

That would mean these officers need to be arrested themselves. And they need to be charged.

I would say that if the MDC are given control of the Police, which will need to happen if any progress is to be made in Zimbabwe, then there are going to be a lot of "policemen/women" (I put these titles in quotations.. because I feel the force is now largely a ZANU-pf militia anyway), who will be finding themselves where they have put so many brave people just trying to stand up for themselves.