NAYO Press Statement on the suspension of Community Tolerance Reconciliation and Development (COTRAD)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

National Association of Youth Organizations (NAYO)                                     

HARARE, Zimbabwe, 

19 March 2019

The National Association of Youth Organizations (NAYO Africa) is a Youth Umbrella Body for youth organizations’ working in Zimbabwe is dismayed at the suspension of Community Tolerance Reconciliation and Development (COTRAD) under unclear circumstances which point towards the accentuation of the crackdown to civil society organizations in the country. Following events of 14 to 16 January there has been a disproportionate targeting of youth in the aftermath whether as civil society, political and human right activists with hundreds of youth arrested, intimidated, some abducted among other violations to which they have been subjected. The constitution provides for the freedoms to association, assembly and expression and also includes the right to protest. Cardinal to the work of civil society organizations are these rights as CSOs are an interlocutor between the Government and Citizens and enable their critical work which includes: complementing government on service provision, enabling citizens to claim their rights, education and empowerment, citizen participation and policy influencing.

We thus call on government in light of this suspension to:

• Institute measures to revoke the suspension of COTRAD from working in the province of Masvingo as this only serves to weaken the agency of youth, in this case who are taking initiative to improve the lives of the citizens whom they are serving through their work;
• Uphold and respect the freedoms to association, assembly and expression as provided for in the Constitution of Zimbabwe. The crackdown on local CSOs and activists points to a gross violation of these rights as enshrined within the constitution of Zimbabwe; and
• For government to put to an end to the crackdown on civil society organizations and actors/activists in the country as this is militating against critical developmental work in the areas of peace-building, health, and governance, humanitarian among other sectors. CSOs are full development actors; government must accord them their status and put forth with the political rhetoric on CSOs being regime change agents of the West.

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