Arthur C. Helton Fellowship Reflection Paper
Jared Shepherd, Harare, Zimbabwe
The American Society of International Law's Helton Fellowship Program enabled me to spend the summer working as a legal intern for Zimbabwe Lawyer's for Human Rights (ZLHR) in Harare, Zimbabwe. The Fellowship allowed me to work on human rights issues pertaining to the HIV/AIDS crisis in Zimbabwe and provided me a firsthand perspective on the work of grassroots human rights defenders. Most significantly, I experienced living through an economic catastrophe and working in one of the world's most politically repressive States.
| My placement with ZLHR's HIV/AIDS and Humanitarian Law Project allowed me to contribute to their future litigation efforts by completing some much needed research. As a preliminary matter, I familiarized myself with the complexities of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Zimbabwe through smaller projects, such as a survey of national legislation addressing the disease. Once I understood the government's response to HIV/AIDS in Zimbabwe, I conceptualized my main project. I hoped that a paper on access to life-saving anti-retroviral therapy (ART) for people living with HIV/AIDS in Zimbabwe could serve as a framework for ZLHR's future litigation efforts. This litigation strategy contained the following: an overview of current treatment issues in Zimbabwe; an analysis of access to treatment under an international human rights framework; a discussion of persuasive cases addressing access to treatment from other countries, such as South Africa; and a memorandum on challenging Zimbabwe's National AIDS Council through the Administrative Justice Act. Due to time constraints, I did not finish this project for ZLHR. Fortunately, another intern embraced the project and will hopefully complete the paper for the organization. |  Tatenda Chirawe, a law student and ZLHR intern, took this photo at Thuthuka, a contact center, for children living on the streets in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe |
The greatest challenges I faced this summer in Zimbabwe were environment-related not work-related. The oppressive political and military regime and the on-going economic nightmare caused anxiety throughout my internship. If one were not previously aware of the terrible human rights conditions in the country, it is possible that a visitor could perceive the human rights situation to be relatively stable. The most blatant human rights abuses in Zimbabwe - targeted acts of political violence against lawyers, human rights activists, and opposition political leaders - are also the most concealed. These activities often take place in the cover of night and often do not appear in local newspapers or other media outlets. As a foreigner in Zimbabwe working on human rights issues, I had to keep a low profile and be careful of what I said in public. At times, we were followed by agents from the Central Intelligence Office, investigating what we were doing in Zimbabwe. As a necessary precaution, I was unable to tell most people the real reason I was in Zimbabwe, making it difficult to establish friendships outside of the office.
 Me as a Millionare. I believe this is about U.S. $200 worth of Zim cash, roughly around Z$ 20 million at the time | In contrast to the repressive political environment, the economic crisis is instantly palpable to anyone visiting the country. When I arrived in Harare, the capital city, on June 3, economists projected the inflation rate stood at 4,000%. The government adamantly stated the exchange rate to be one U.S. dollar to 250 Zim dollars (Z$). In actuality, at that time, one U.S. dollar earned $50,000 Zim dollars on the black market. Due to this stark disparity, a person landing at the airport in Harare and exchanging U.S. dollars at the official rate would be unable to get a taxi into the city center for less than an inconceivable $10,000.00. |
| The summer became more challenging near in July when the economic crisis in Zimbabwe took a turn for the worse. The government of Zimbabwe, looking for a scapegoat for their disastrous economic policies, placed the blame on local business owners. The government took the position that responsibility for the nation's rampant inflation lay with the business community for arbitrarily raising prices in a scheme to rake in profits. The solution, according to the government, would be mandatory price-slashing to the arbitrarily chosen date of June 18. This policy resulted in widespread chaos in supermarkets and stores, as people, afraid that the stores would run out of food, rushed to buy up all the food at the new low prices. Within a week, the groceries stores were virtually empty. The only products left were the inedible or extremely expensive food that people normally didn't purchase anyway. Finding staple food items became an almost daily chore, along with plotting out creative dinners based on meager and random ingredients. |  The daily bread queue at the shop next to my residence. I took this photo right before the police pulled up |
The economic situation in Zimbabwe is hard to comprehend, but I, like most Zimbabweans, learned to adapt and cope. I often heard the phrase "This is Zimbabwe" spoken by both Zimbabweans and foreigners in reaction to the unusual aspects of everyday life in Harare. For instance, when paying for a restaurant bill worth around $15 with a four-inch stack of Z$10,000 bills, one might exclaim "This is Zimbabwe" with a frustrated shrug. This reaction to the surreal life that is the average person's reality in Zimbabwe came to represent for me, not a light-hearted acknowledgment of the situation, but a heartbreaking sense of complacency. Although some people are optimistic about the future, I do not see change on the horizon.
I know that Mugabe's regime holds on to power by creating an atmosphere of fear through targeted violence against dissidents. I also know that Zimbabweans are worried, foremost, about feeding their families, and that changing their political leadership is further down on their to-do list. Despite these acknowledgements, I am saddened by the lack of widespread political dissidence, human rights activism, and movement for change in Zimbabwe. This is not to place blame on the people of Zimbabwe, but only to acknowledge - in a country without food, without gasoline, without employment - there is no signs of a massive non-violent movement that could effect real political and economic change.
The sad way of life in Zimbabwe is, unbelievably, continuing to get worse. Eissa Villasenor and myself hope to bring our experiences back to Minnesota by raising awareness for this humanitarian crisis. We will collaborate on a presentation at the University of Minnesota Law School, sponsored by the Amnesty International Legal Support Network and the University of Minnesota Human Rights Center, about our experiences in Zimbabwe and the current human rights crisis. In addition, we hope to collaborate on op-ed pieces in local newspapers to bring Zimbabwe's story to a larger audience.
I am very fortunate to have experienced Zimbabwe and had the good fortune of meeting some wonderful human rights advocates from Zimbabwe and even Uganda. I hope to continue to make contributions to human rights situations abroad through advocacy and legal activism as I embark on my legal career upon graduation in May 2008.