Le prix Carmignac du photojournalisme est une initiative soutenue par la Fondation Carmignac.
Zimbabwe
The report
Exhibitions
Publication
Jury
3° Edition
Zimbabwe: Your Wounds Will Be Named Silence
In the 21st century, the most obtuse dictatorships are officially known as republics. This is the case for the Republic of Zimbabwe. In Harare, between December 2011 and April 2012 and under the economic, political, policed and unsanitary hell overseen by the tenebrous Robert Mugabe (1924-2019), Robin Hammod faced prison.
Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, 10 February 2012. Patrick, 5, lives in a landfill with his grandmother. They earn an average of $10 a month recycling rubbish. In 2012 life expectancy in Zimbabwe was 55 years for a world average of 71 years.
On the 18th of April 2011 Zimbabwe celebrated 32 years of Independence. The reality though is that few were rejoicing. The freedom that was promised three decades earlier has become oppression, the democracy blacks fought a war and died for turned into dictatorship, and independence from 100 years of colonial rule turned into enslavement to a brutal regime.
This is what Robin Hammond went to Zimbabwe to document – 32 years of a country in violent decline.
Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, February 2012. The Cold Storage Commission in Bulawayo, where cattle used to be slaughtered and butchered for export to Europe.
Robin Hammond, a New Zealander born in 1975, is a great explorer of sub-Saharan Africa. He has worked as a tireless whistle-blower on human rights abuses around the world.
Between 2007 and 2009, he travelled all around Zimbabwe, a country devastated from top to bottom by its irremovable despot Robert Mugabe, and documented multiple police, sanitation and economic horrors in a "garden of Eden that has become a hell to many of its inhabitants".
He returned there for five months in similarly harrowing conditions. Despite two stays in prison, including 25 days "in appalling conditions", he brought back these awe-inspiring yet subtle portraits. The daily scenes, captured from inside a car, provide moving glimpses of the kukiya-kiya, the “making do” that allows Zimbabweans to simply survive. "Many wanted to show me the terrible living conditions they had to endure”, he said. “Some were afraid for me and warned me of the danger…"
“I was no longer safe in Zimbabwe. I was also worried about putting other people in danger by my mere presence. […] I learned that an article had been put online, […] published a photo of me and said that I was a photojournalist working on human rights issues in Zimbabwe. […] I was scared […]. I had to cross the border as quickly as possible.”
