Beatrice Mtetwa spoke at two on-campus events at Carleton Sept. 9 ( Photo: Adam Dietrich )
Renowned Zimbabwean human rights and media lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa was this year’s keynote speaker to over 4,000 students at the new student convocation ceremony Sept. 9. She also spoke in a panel discussion to share her story of defeat, perseverance and success, and of her mission to achieve democracy in Zimbabwe.
"Beatrice Mtetwa’s courageous words and heroic actions are an inspiration to us all," said Carleton president Roseann Runte.
“The fact that she’s here,” Runte said, opens our eyes to “a really important national issue.”
The panel, entitled “The Road Back to Democracy and Human Rights in Zimbabwe: a Discussion,” also featured three Carleton faculty members, including Chris Waddell and Jeff Sallot from the School of Journalism and Communication and Blair Rutherford, director of the new Institute of African Studies.
Mtetwa is the 2009 recipient of the Ludovic-Trarieux International Human Rights Prize, making her the first African to win since Nelson Mandela was given the first award in 1985.
She has worked towards liberating Zimbabweans from a restraining political environment and towards freeing journalists condemned under Mugabe’s media laws. The consequences have included various charges made against her through Mugabe’s government, and even cases of physical violence from the police.
“We challenged [the government about] whether or not someone’s been tortured or kidnapped,” she said. She said she wants to know why this happened and bring those responsible for their pain to justice.
“In the constitutional court, we asked the question, ‘Under what law were these people taken from their homes?’ and [the] general said, ‘Consider that there was no law,’” Mtetwa said.
Mtetwa worked for the Daily News, the only independent newspaper in Zimbabwe until the state shut it down in 2003. There are now 10 newspapers in Zimbabwe, all run by the state, and what they release as media is “very, very censored,” she said.
“I have been called very ugly in one of their articles. I have been called very lonely. But what has it got to do with what I do?” she said. “As you can see, there is a lot of abuse in the state media.”
Despite her efforts to improve the transparency of the state media, she explains that there is still a great deal of self-censorship in Zimbabwe.
“Publishing is a business. You don’t want to unnecessarily jeopardize your business.”
With people relying more on online publications and radio access that is received in some rural areas, Mtetwa is hopeful for the future of her country.
“Democracy is a process. It may not happen tomorrow,” she said. “It will come to Zimbabwe. I am absolutely certain that the people of Zimbabwe will enjoy democracy.”