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Chiadzwa state brutalities: Let the women speak
Centre for Research and Development (CRD)
October 29, 2009

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Battered and bruised, raped, HIV infections, STIs, miscarriages, scars of dog bites, Mossberg bullets and unending nightmares are the imprints of the government sanctioned "operation hakudzokwi" (You will not return) which was launched in Chiadzwa diamond fields in November 2008. It is a few weeks before the nation commemorates the massacre of hundreds of civilians by the Zimbabwe National Army in November 2008 under an operation named 'Operation Hakudzokwi". Listening to the victims narrate their nightmares is as terrible as listening to survivors of the holocaust. Seeing the scars and swollen flesh due to Mossberg bullets still etched in the victim's bodies is equally horrendous and perplexing. Only a tip of an iceberg is publicly known of Operation Hakudzokwi.

In an effort to investigate the effects of Operation hakudzokwi on women, the CRD interviewed
20 victims who live in Mutare's high density suburb of Sakubva. The women, all of them traders who were involved in selling various wares to the panners and buyers in the diamond fields, gave chilling but similar accounts of gross human rights abuses they suffered at the hands of state security agents. Of the 20 women 12 confessed to having been raped either by soldiers or were forced by soldiers to have unprotected sex with panners at gunpoint. From that group the oldest woman who was raped is aged 41. All of them were first beaten severely with iron bars and gun butts to disorient them and break any resistance. After the beatings the women easily complied with any orders given by the soldiers. Two of the victims went for HIV tests after being raped and they tested positive. Some didn't go for HIV tests after being raped.

Two of the victims suffered miscarriages due to severe beatings they went through before being gang raped. One of the two women who suffered miscarriage failed to seek treatment after her ordeal and she relied on traditional herbs which left her with severe side effects. She told the CRD her womb was infected and she can't conceive anymore, causing marital problems for her. The oldest victim, aged 74, was beaten with a gun butt by a soldier young enough to be her grand son. She said she begged the young man not to continue beating her, reminding him he was her 'son', to which he retorted, 'I don't have a mother who come to Chiadzwa'. Agnes has a swollen womb where she was beaten and she hasn't been able to seek treatment.

Another elderly woman said she went to Chiadzwa to sell vegetables and she fell into the hands of Police Officers. The officers set two dogs on her and watched as the dogs mauled her. She said she begged the officers to save her life but they continued to instruct the dogs to 'catch both hands'. She also said she reminded the boys that she was a mother to them to which they replied, 'we don't have a mother who come to Chiadzwa'.

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