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Victims of state brutality speak out
IRIN News
April 24, 2008

http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=77900

President Robert Mugabe's government is challenging widespread reports of systematic beatings and assaults by the army, police and ZANU-PF militia as part of a campaign dubbed "Operation Mavhoterapapi" (Who did you vote for?).

The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) claim that since the 29 March poll, in which the ruling ZANU-PF lost their majority in parliament for the first time since independence from Britain in 1980, at least 10 of their supporters have been killed and hundreds assaulted.

The MDC contend that Operation Mavhoterapapi is intended to intimidate voters ahead of an expected second-round presidential ballot, which ZANU-PF claim had no clear winner, against the opposition claim that their leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, won by more than the 50 percent plus one vote required, a result that negates a second round of voting.

"If anyone has information [about assaults and killings of opposition supporters], they should approach the police and furnish them with the details, so that full investigations are instituted," said the current justice minister, Patrick Chinamasa, who lost his seat in the election to the opposition MDC candidate.

"Why go to the media and splash unsubstantiated pictures and stories? For your own information, some of those pictures being carried by the media date back to 2000 [when state-sponsored violence targeted the newly-formed MDC in the run-up to parliamentary elections]," he commented.

Police spokesman and assistant commissioner Wayne Bvudzijena said no formal complaints of abuse by the security forces and ruling party militants had been received. "It is unfortunate that these reports of political violence are only surfacing on the internet, with no formal reports being made. We respond to information supplied to us by the public and we have nothing to hide."

IRIN interviewed several MDC supporters who were hospitalized after attacks by people they said were either members of the army, police or ZANU-PF militia, otherwise known as war veterans. Most were too afraid to be identified and said that during their beatings they were warned not to speak to the media or report the attacks to the police.

The following testimonies are by two men willing to be named and photographed, who told IRIN they had been the victims of unprovoked assaults by armed soldiers loyal to Mugabe and the ZANU-PF government.

Norton Makoni
Norton Makoni is a prominent MDC activist in Mufakose, a working-class township in the capital, Harare. Heavily bandaged, he is still recovering from the beating he received from soldiers at his home.

"On 20 April, at about 3 a.m., I was woken by the sound of a person crying in anguish. I peeped through the window and saw about 20 uniformed and armed soldiers in my yard. Some of them were beating up the security guard on duty with their rifle butts.

"The guard was screaming agonisingly and begging for mercy telling them they had broken his arm. One of the soldiers kicked him in the head several times with his booted feet until he lay still."

Makoni said the soldiers then surrounded his house and kicked in the door. "[They] pounced on a cousin who had paid me a visit. They dragged him outside and started assaulting him. Some of the soldiers who were ransacking the house found me in the bedroom where I was hiding. They dragged me outside and they kicked and beat me. Thankfully, they did not see my wife who was hiding under the bed."

He said the soldiers took a break during the beating for some hurried consultations. "He is definitely the one," Makoni overhead one of them saying. He was then carried to a truck parked a short distance from his house. "They threw me in the back of the truck, where the assaults continued. They wanted to know where I had stowed the weapons to fight the government, and what role I was going to play in toppling the government."

Makoni told the soldiers he was unaware of any weapons or any plans of insurrection, but it did not stop the assault. "By then they had stopped their truck outside the capital and had thrown me to the ground ... As it was becoming light, the soldiers left. I only realised that the torture had stopped when I heard them drive off.

"With blood oozing from my body and my head swollen, I sat by the roadside until well-wishers offered to drive me home. My wife was safe but the guard had sustained a broken arm, while my cousin sustained body injuries. They are both in hospital."

Makoni remains defiant. "The state is trying to frighten people into voting for the ruling party during an anticipated run-off in the presidential race. But we will not be frightened. We will vote for the opposition again."

Matthew Takaona
Mathew Takaona is president of the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists, which represents about 98 percent of Zimbabwe's working journalists.

"On 17 March, on the eve of our independence celebrations, I was parked outside a hotel in Chitungwiza [a dormitory town on the outskirts of Harare]. I was sitting in my car with a cousin when we suddenly realised that people were running at full speed towards the hotel entrance. We also noticed that there were several uniformed soldiers who were in pursuit. Sensing danger, I tried to reverse the car to leave the scene."

"As I was trying to pull out from the parking area, two soldiers pointed guns at us and ordered us to stop. They ordered us out of the car and pushed us to the ground."

He said his cousin was the first to be attacked. "He was moaning and whimpering as they rained lashes with a whip on his back. One of the soldiers then picked up a log and hit my cousin with it on his back. Suddenly they turned to me and beat me up with a whip and hard instruments, which I assumed were butts of guns or logs."

"Of course, I had received reports that people were being beaten by people alleged to be members of state security. The reality and extent of the abuses assumed a new dimension when I became one of the victims.

"As a journalist and a fairly well known citizen, I do not only have a voice to say what happened, but I have a moral obligation to give this testimony so that thousands of Zimbabweans under this predicament can be heard. I shudder to imagine the levels of hopelessness and despair that have affected ordinary Zimbabweans, especially in the rural areas, who have no-one to turn to when state brutality visits them."

Takaona said that after the beating his assailants had robbed him of a substantial amount of money.

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