President Emmerson Mnangagwa is tightening his grip on Zimbabwe by launching a harsh crackdown on civil society, students, and the opposition ahead of next month’s Southern African Development Community (SADC) summit in Harare. While the regime pours millions into roads, villas, buses, and hotel upgrades to impress regional leaders, it is also silencing its own people with brutal police force and unjust laws.

This summit is not just about regional cooperation—it is a desperate attempt by Mnangagwa to gain legitimacy after the SADC observer mission rejected last year’s deeply flawed election. Instead of addressing electoral concerns, Mnangagwa has chosen to muzzle dissent, jail critics, and present a polished lie to the SADC community.

Last week, a peaceful Zimbabwe National Students Union (ZINASU) meeting was violently attacked by police at the ZESA National Training Centre in Harare. Students were gathered to discuss internal matters—not to protest—but they were beaten, arrested, and dragged to police cells. These are young Zimbabweans exercising their constitutional right to assembly, yet Mnangagwa sees them as threats that must be crushed.

This comes on the heels of a growing pattern of repression. Former MP and minister Jameson Timba and 77 others were arrested for holding a simple braai to commemorate the Soweto Uprising on June 16. Tear gas, torture, and baseless charges followed. These young people did not commit crimes—they gathered to remember history. In Mnangagwa’s Zimbabwe, memory itself is dangerous.

Meanwhile, opposition leader Job Sikhala, a man who spent 595 days in prison for nothing, has finally been cleared. The High Court recently dismissed his bogus convictions, yet the damage is already done. He lost nearly two years of his life to political imprisonment, and his case is just one example of how far the regime is willing to go to silence dissent.

Even as the courts start to push back, the Mnangagwa regime is entrenching authoritarian rule. The so-called “Patriotic Act,” a new addition to the criminal law code, punishes Zimbabweans for engaging with foreign governments or speaking against the regime. It’s a law meant to terrorize critics, activists, and journalists into silence—and it’s already having an effect.

The strategy is clear: silence all opposition, avoid embarrassment during the SADC summit, and secure the image of a “stable” Zimbabwe for international audiences. But there is nothing stable about locking up mothers with babies, jailing students for meetings, or brutalizing citizens for remembering Youth Day.

The streets of Harare are being swept clean—not of litter, but of human rights. Protesters are arrested before they even speak. Homes are raided. Political gatherings are outlawed. The country has become a police state disguised as a democracy.

Mnangagwa hopes that shiny roads and refurbished hotels will blind the SADC leaders to the suffering of the people. He wants them to ignore the fact that his government is criminalizing peaceful assembly and weaponizing the law against citizens. But the people of Zimbabwe see the truth—and so should the world.

The international community must speak out. SADC must refuse to be used as a stage for lies. Regional leaders must not turn a blind eye to repression just because the floors are polished and the buses are new. The real Zimbabwe is in the cells, in the courtrooms, in the bruises of students and the silenced cries of a mother jailed with her baby.

The people of Zimbabwe are watching. They know that legitimacy does not come from motorcades or summit speeches—it comes from respect for the constitution, for freedom, and for life itself. Mnangagwa may try to bury dissent under concrete and fear, but he cannot erase it.

This summit should not be a celebration. It should be a reckoning.

Let the world see Mnangagwa’s golden roads—and the bloodstains he’s trying to cover.