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Joram Nyathi Group Political Editor
After he was caught, the man was taken in by the security details and subjected to cruel beating. He was then taken to a local hospital but died early this year without the relatives knowing about his whereabouts. Once the relatives got to know what led to the death, they took the body in a coffin to the wholesale in down town Harare. No doubt they wanted the security guards and owner of the wholesale to eat the corpse. This is a sad tale but perhaps also an extreme example of what happens very often in Harare.

On a number of occasions I have read about women accused of petty theft in some downtown shop being subjected to vicious beatings before they are stripped naked and drenched in oil or some substance which causes a lot of itching on the skin. To conclude the drama of humiliation and gratuitous physical and emotional torment, the disgraced, poor women are handed over to the police.

On two recent occasions I witnessed young men being subjected to merciless and senseless beatings near Africa Unity Square after a wild chase by scores of people who sounded like hounds and hyenas. They were accused of snatching cellphones from a woman’s handbag. After they had been bloodied by the unaccountble crowd, they were pushed into the fountain pool in Africa Unity Square before they were ordered out and handed over to the police.

The beating is termed meting instant justice in local parlance. The kicking and punching are dished out randomly on any part of the body to inflict the maximum pain and injury to this scum of the earth. Everyone in the crowd wants their spot on the punch-bag; they are baying for blood, it is sport and you are fair game. The police then take over to allow “the law to take its course”. But they still don’t bother to restrain those kicking you, punching and spitting in your face.

Zimbabwe, my Christian nation!
Is this the kind of society you want your son, your daughter, to grow up in? The law will take its course in time. But not that everyone will feel expiated, especially, not if you are one Robert Martin Gumbura.

Ever since his sins of rape and terrorising women and using them as sex objects in his brand of religiosity were exposed, the pastor has been subjected to a ruthless form of moral flagellation we only read about in the Moslem world. This was despite the clear fact that most of his victims were adult women who could very easily have escaped from his supposed captivity and reported the matter. Some of them were married women whom he reportedly loaned to their husbands.

They chose to visit their husbands and voluntarily return to Gumbura’s lion’s den!
Recently one Thomas Chirembwe was convicted of raping and robbing some of his 13 victims. He is serving an effective 230 years in jail.
After the law took its course, Gumbura was convicted on four counts of rape and sentenced to 50 years. Regional magistrate Hosea Mujaya suspended 10 for good behaviour, leaving Gumbura, already aged 57, to serve an effective 40 years.

You would think that that sentence meets the justice of the case. Not in our Christian Zimbabwe. There was an outcry and holy outrage. Women were suddenly all over the show. The sentence was too lenient. Some said he should have been sentenced to hang, some wanted 100 years, others 200. Yet others pronounced life imprisonment.

The magistrate rightly pointed out that the accused had “acted like a sheep in a wolf’s skin”. He nevertheless exposed the hypocritical shock when he remarked: “There is no doubt that pastors, elders and deacons in this church must have been aware of the blasphemous teachings in the church, including the abuse of women and children, but chose to ignore (it).” or further hammer the point home, he noted: “… fairness in sentencing should be allowed to reign as opposed to emotions”.

Why so? The purpose of a sentence should be to rehabilitate and to correct the criminal. It should not be purely about the gratification of some primitive revenge instinct. A prison term is imposed so as to take the criminal away from “civilised” society for a certain period. This is to allow due punishment for the offence. It also allows the victim to heal.

In the case of Gumbura, if he were lucky he would be 97 years when he leaves prison. I doubt if he would pose any threat to society, nor would any of his victims be traumatised by his sight, that is if they could recognise each other on the street. But most likely, his effective sentence of 40 years amounts to life imprisonment. So what is all this disgust and outrage about?

How have we allowed ourselves as a nation to become so sadistic? Is there some underlying anger, frustration even, to which these occasional eruptions of violence in the streets give a cathartic effect, a form of purgation, where the victim becomes a vicarious target? Because to me a sentence of more than 100 years, let alone 200, is no more deterrent than one of 50 years to a 50-year old man.
Anything else is academic if not outright sadistic.