by Christopher Makaza
Human rights group, Counselling Services Unit (CSU) is reportedly struggling to keep afloat following the termination of funding from the United States Agency for International Aid (USAID) in 2018 on allegations of mismanagement of funds.
USAID terminated CSU funding together with the Human Rights Association and Election Resource Centre (ERC) following a regular internal audit that uncovered unusual activities and non-compliance in the use of funds by the organisations.
CSU is a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) registered as a health clinic that provides medical and rehabilitation services to alleged victims of political violence in Zimbabwe, mainly those from the opposition parties.
A contact within the distressed CSU told this publication that the Unit was no longer focusing on alleged opposition victims of political violence, but on the general public and was now operating an open clinic system at number 1 Raleigh Avenue in Harare.
According to the contact, CSU is now surviving on small grants from Netherlands Embassy, the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA) and the United National Women (UNW).
The contact said that the CSU used to compete for funds with the Zimbabwe Association for Doctors for Human Rights (ZADHR), which was apparently being given preference as they owned private health care centres across the country making it easy to admit or attend to patients within their premises.
The contact further revealed that ever since CSU lost its big donor, its relations with the MDC had been sour due to financial challenges.
CSU is known for fabricating cases of human rights abuse in Zimbabwe after every election, with a view to discrediting any election outcome, which would be in favour of the ruling party.
When the MDC launched a court petition challenging the 2002 election results, CSU ‘cooked’ evidence and brought witnesses on behalf of the MDC.
In 2018, the Unit together with Amnesty International, Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) and Zimbabwe Peace Project (ZPP) generated a Post-election Violence Monitoring Report claiming that over 199 people had been either abducted, assaulted or killed by ZANU PF, security personnel and traditional leaders. The allegations were not supported by any specifics as many of them were based on social media rumours.
It`s on record that CSU rented and bought houses for the so-called MDC victims of political violence in Glenview, Harare.
The CSU has been fanning ethnic hatred and violence since its establishment in March 1993 as Amani Trust. Having been exposed as a regime change outfit, Amani Trust was rechristened CSU in 2003. Its founding Board of Trustees, chaired by Antony Reeler, had nine members, all white except one black Catholic Archbishop Pius Ncube.
