The Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts at the Georgia Institute of Technology awarded Beatrice Mtetwa, a human rights activist and lawyer from Zimbabwe, its “Prize for Social Courage” Thursday, Nov. 13, for her unrelenting support of the rule of law in the face of severe oppression in her home country.
While in the midst of a whirlwind tour of Atlanta Nov. 10-14 including visits with former President Carter and U.S. Rep. John Lewis, she hammered away during numerous speaking engagements at the importance of the rule of law as central to all economic and societal development.
She repeatedly pointed to its disappearance in Zimbabwe as destroying the nation’s economy as well as its civil institutions, and directly blamed its absence for the country’s 80 percent unemployment rate.
“The rule of law is central to everything that you do,” she said, including nation building.
Without rule of law, she added, there can be no investment because investors won’t risk their capital. She pointed directly to the collapse of the country’s food production. Once a breadbasket for neighboring countries, Zimbabwe now has to import food and experienced farmers have had their properties taken away unlawfully, she said.
“Every aspect of everyday life is affected by the rule of law,” she said. “Without the rule of law teachers can’t teach, students have problems getting school fees. The cake gets smaller and smaller.”
Her definition of the rule of law as providing a set of rules for everyone that lets people know what they can and cannot do and is fair to everyone has been consistently undermined, she said, by the government of Robert Mugabe, the leader of a rebel group against white minority rule who had been imprisoned from 1964-74.
“We were all proud to be associated with him and everybody wanted to be part of reconciliation,” Ms. Mtetwa said of Mr. Mugabe’s rise to power in 1980 when he became prime minister.
But the government’s rule quickly changed from one of reconciliation to one of repression, including a long list of abuses ranging from the deaths of large numbers of political and tribal opponents to the expropriation of land.
The land often was taken away from its owners and given to political cronies without farming experience. The farms soon went fallow, she said, because they did not receive the full-time dedication required. “To be successful at farming, you have to be there and you have to know what you are doing,” she said.
In March 2013, she said that there was a brief glimmer of optimism due to a new constitution, which enshrined democratic principles. But it has been “pretty much disregarded.”
Just how disregarded was painfully apparent to her personally. The very day after a national referendum approved the new constitution, she was arrested for asking police to show her a search warrant as they barged into the house of a client.
The police charged her with obstructing justice as she accused them of conducting “unconstitutional” acts. For eight days she was held in jail in a cell with 15 other women. In the meantime, she provided legal counsel to other prisoners and eventually was released after defending herself in court.
Self-defense is not a practice encouraged in the legal profession, she said following a viewing of a documentary titled “Beatrice Mtetwa and the Rule of Law” at Georgia Tech’s Scheller College of Business. Nevertheless, she named one advantage. When false testimony is given in court, “You know it right away and it speeds everything up,” she said.
Although acquitted of all the obstruction charges, she periodically receives threats that the case will be re-opened. Nor has Ms. Mtetwa escaped these tussles unscathed and she has allowed photographs of the bruises on her buttocks, back and arms to be shown to prove what she has endured.
During the question and answer period after the showing of the documentary, she explained that she fervently pursued every opportunity for an education because she wanted to escape the village life to which she was born in Swaziland.
She is the oldest of her father’s 50 children he had had with his six wives. While caring for the others, she often challenged her father and traced this relationship as being responsible for her doggedness.
Aside from following every educational opportunity, she said that she had never set the goal of being a human rights advocate which she now calls “her job.” “This is my job,” she added. “I shouldn’t be harassed for doing my job. I’m not doing anything illegal. It’s what I’m entitled to do.”
Not entirely pessimistic about Zimbabwe’s future, she didn’t express any optimism about the country’s condition improving anytime soon. Even the Southern African Development Community, which is composed of Zimbabwe and 14 other members and is founded on the basis of constitutional and development ideals, she said is of no assistance in combatting the human rights abuses and economic degradation of her country.
Her greatest hope, she said, is “that the least expected thing can happen,” pointing to the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the end of apartheid.
“If everybody is afraid, nothing gets done,” she concluded.
Ms. Mtetwa has received numerous awards around the world for her unflinching support of the rights of journalists, both local and international, as well as a wide spectrum of defendants who have been brutalized by the government of Mr. Mugabe.
She is the first woman to receive the Ivan Allen Jr Prize for Social Courage, which is named after a former mayor of Atlanta and Georgia Tech graduate.
In 1963, he testified before Congress in support of what would become the Civil Rights Act of 1964, risking his place in society and political future. Prior recipients include former U.S. Sen. Sam Nunn, Dr. William Foege, and U.S. Rep.John Lewis. The prize is accompanied by a stipend of $100,000, and is supported in perpetuity through a commitment by the Wilbur and Hilda Glenn Family Foundation.
The nominating committee is chaired by Joseph Bankoff, who chairs the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at Georgia Tech.
Other members of the nominating committee include G. Wayne Clough, president emeritus of Georgia Tech, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution; John Hardman, former president and CEO of the Carter Center; Ann W. Cramer, senior consultant, Coxe Curry & Associates; Kenneth Knoespel, McEver professor of engineering and the liberal arts at Georgia Tech; Pete McTier, a trustee of the Robert W. Woodruff Foundation; former U.S. Sen. Sam Nunn; Dean Royster; Eugene Tempel, president emeritus of the Indiana University Foundation; Charlayne Hunter Gault, journalist and author; and William Todd, professor of the practice, Scheller College of Business, Georgia Tech.
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