Zimpapers Logo

mandate to safeguard the country against puppets seeking to reverse the gains of the liberation struggle.
He said the force was for the law, the country and the people.
“We are a peace-loving nation and as such, the people of Zimbabwe deserve police officers that are fair and firm in discharging their constitutional mandate,” he said.

The police chief was at a pass-out parade of 473 policemen and women in Harare yesterday.
He said yesterday’s pass out parade would go a long way in nourishing and extending the frontiers of policing excellence in the country.

“Zimbabwe Republic Police is for the law, the country and the people, hence the police competency-based recruit training is deliberately designed not merely to add numbers but to also enormously enhance the quality of policing,” said the police chief.

AUGUSTINE CHIHURI

• Community urged to support anti-stocktheft efforts
• Police pledge support for Zim sovereignty
  

The officers underwent a six-month training in police duties and investigations, police powers and the law of evidence, human rights, weapon handling and history of Zimbabwe among others.
Comm-Gen Chihuri said it was pleasing to note that since its inception in 1980, the force continued to include the subject of human rights in its training curriculum.

He said this substantiated the force’s unfaltering commitment to uphold the citizens’ rights and fundamental freedom as enshrined in the supreme law of Zimbabwe.
“In fact, such commitment dates back to the protracted liberation struggle when living and departed heroes fiercely fought the Rhodesian Government, which was considering the black majority as second class citizens.

“Evidently, this puts to shame baseless, frivolous and cheap propaganda by those, bent on discrediting the impeccable image of the ZRP through claiming that the organisation abuses human rights and selectively applies the laws of the country,” he said.

Comm-Gen Chihuri, however, said when police officers were brutally murdered by the same people who accuse the force of abusing human rights there was deafening silence by their mouthpiece, the private media.

He said it was vital for the private media and the imaginary people it purports to represent to appreciate that police officers were human beings who were also entitled to human rights.
Comm-Gen Chihuri took this opportunity to remind all Zimbabweans that police officers had a legal right to defend themselves when they were unlawfully attacked in the course of their duties.

He expressed concern over lack of resources in the force that has affected its operations and urged Government to seriously address the challenges.