TITLE:
The Weaponisation of the Coronavirus Crisis in Zimbabwe: Legal and Extra-Legal Instruments
AUTHORS:
Gorden Moyo, Kucaca Ivumile Phulu
KEYWORDS:
COVID-19, De-Weaponisation, Securitisation, Weaponisation, Zimbabwe
JOURNAL NAME:
iBusiness,
Vol.13 No.1,
March
25,
2021
ABSTRACT: This article sets out to examine the legal and
extra-legal instruments deployed by the ruling executive-military alliance in
the fight against the scourge of the COVID-19 pandemic in Zimbabwe. The ruling
executive-military alliance led by President Emmerson Mnangagwa has responded
to the eruption of the coronavirus by adopting a highly securitised approach
backed by a battery of legal and extra-legal instruments. It is therefore the
argument of this article that the Mnangagwa administration has weaponised
COVID-19 in order to achieve some objectives beyond the public health concerns.
In particular, the government has sort to use the lockdown measures to clamp
down on political opposition, silence critics, contain the restive population,
and entrench its power and control over some key accountability institutions
including the legislature, the judiciary, and the media. The article concludes
by canvassing for the de-securitisation and de-weaponisation of COVID-19. This
means shifting the concept of
securitisation of public health threat from a state-centred focus that
privileges government and state security apparatuses to one that accentuates
people as the main beneficiaries of the fight against this deadly coronavirus
pandemic.