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This article participates on the following special index pages:
Post-election violence 2008 - Index of articles & images
Horror
in Zimbabwe
William Bruce
Rogers
May 09, 2008
On the day of
the 6th May, 2008 at approximately 1300 hours I was visited by three
men at our farm, Chigwell Extension Farm. They
told me that I had two minutes to vacate my property otherwise they
will send the mob there and the house is not worth sacrificing my
life for. Because we would lose our lives. They said they were like
hungry lions. My
wife, Annette Mary Rogers, made a report to the Chegutu Police Station
about this incident, naming the people involved. At that stage I
asked them if they would react to any incident that my occur and
they informed my wife that they would speak to the Assistant Inspector.
My wife also saw him before making the report and informed him of
the visit and he told her to go and make a report at the charge
office.
At about 1700
hours on the same day a vehicle - a white Datsun 1800 pickup
arrived at the gate with approximately 10-12 people. They demanded
that I opened the gate because they wanted to talk to me. I refused
and went into the house together with my wife. We locked ourselves
into the house. They came to the house and wanted me to go outside
to speak to them which I refused to do. They started smashing windows
and the front door was smashed open. One of them pointed a single
barrel shotgun inside the house at us - we were by then upstairs.
He fired a shot directly at us which went just over my head and
close to my wifes' head. He obviously intended to kill us.
After he fired the shot he went out and it went quiet for a while
and then we heard three shots coming from the workers housing area.
They returned with all the workers and fired another shot whilst
outside.
I managed to
get through to the Assistant Inspector and the Chegutu Police Station
to ask for assistance before there were dead bodies in the house.
He said that I must phone him back in half and hour. Throughout
all of this my wife was on the phone to numerous friends who were
at the Chegutu Police Station trying to get assistance from them
with absolutely no result whatsoever. My wife and I also made many
phone calls to the Member in Charge on his cell phone and he refused
to answer.
By this time
it was dark and the power went off so we were left completely in
darkness and unable to identify our own employees.
They then used
the workers as a shield so that they could all come inside the house
and then were downstairs chanting and singing and making threats.
They sent one
of the workers upstairs to demand the shotgun from me to take back
to them. I refused and this employee stayed upstairs with us. They
then grabbed the son of this employee who was downstairs and from
what I could gather they threatened to either kill or injure him
if he didn't go back downstairs with the weapon. He went back
downstairs without the weapon. After about five minutes they told
all the singing workers to go upstairs using them as a shield once
more. We tried to identify the workers one by one as they came up
the stairs, as my wife was standing at the top of the stairs with
a can of mace. After about 15 workers came through, she could not
identify a person and used the mace and sprayed them. After this
they ran back downstairs and out of the house.
This incensed
the thugs who then proceeded to break down the back door and started
a building a fire in the downstairs lounge directly below us. As
we have a wooden floor upstairs this posed a great threat and we
thought we would be burnt alive which is when I said that we would
come out and asked if they would let us leave peacefully which they
agreed to do. We asked the ring-leader to identify himself. We came
downstairs and they demanded the shotgun from me which was loaded
and off safety and I refused. They then insisted that I give it
to them and I tried to start unloading it and they attacked me.
They then grabbed my wife around the throat and she started screaming.
While they were trying to take the shotgun from me three shots went
off outside the house into the ground as it is a semi-automatic
shotgun. They then took the shotgun from me and wrestled me to the
ground and started beating me with what I assume was sticks, or
pipes and kicking me with their boots. They dragged my wife outside
and they were trying to strangle her. At this stage she managed
to bite the hand of the man who was grabbing her round the throat.
Whereupon he started to beat her. At one time there were at least
four men beating and kicking her.
They then tied
me up with rope and threw me into the back of their pickup. At this
stage my wife was still being beaten. When they had finished beating
her, one of them grabbed her by her feet and dragged her over to
the vehicle. They then demanded that she stand up and get into the
back of the truck which she was unable to do. One of them grabbed
her by the hair, pulled her into a standing position and pushed
her up against the back of the truck and told her to get in. She
did climb in. They searched my wife and found the car-keys in her
pocket and demanded she show them what vehicle the keys were for.
They couldn't find the keys to the other truck. They drove
my vehicle onto the lawn, parked near the truck where I was tied
up. The immobiliser for the vehicle went off. They demanded that
my wife show them where the immobiliser switch was situated which
she did do. One of them drove off with the vehicle which we never
saw again. They still had all the employees on the lawn around a
fire that had been lit b12y the front door and they were still forced
to sing.
There were about
four or five of them around the vehicle watching the two of us,
all the time they were shouting verbal abuse and racist comments
and threatening to kill either one or both of us and also stating
the manner in which they should kill us. This must have gone on
for almost an hour. They were burning my feet with cigarettes and
then we saw vehicle lights shining towards us and then my wife was
told to get out of the vehicle and was dragged towards the headlights
of the vehicle that had arrived. When she got to the vehicle she
saw there were four armed policeman from Kadoma Police Station who
asked what had happened. She told them briefly what had happened
and demanded that they fetch me immediately from the vehicle as
she feared for my life. One of the thugs came and untied me and
told me to get out of the vehicle and made me walk towards the headlights
of the parked vehicle. I noticed that they were armed policeman.
The incident was described in more detail to them and they accompanied
us into the house to get some warm clothing. Once we were in the
house we saw that the gun cabinet had been opened and ransacked
and that my weapons were missing. I informed the police that the
weapons were missing. They then took us out of the house and told
us to get in their vehicle as we were going to Chegutu Police Station
to make a report.
We got to Chegutu
Police Station and they had to call some superior officer to take
a statement and he only arrived as were were leaving to go to Harare
to get urgent medical attention. No police personal of any authority
seemed to show any interest in taking our statement.
We were attended
to by medical staff at the Avenues Clinic where numerous x-rays
and CT scans were taken.
My injuries
are two cracked verterbrae in my lower back. Fractured cheekbone,
fractured nose there was copious bleeding into my sinuses and extensive
lacerations and deep-tissue bruising to my face and back and a bite
to my right earlobe.
My wifes injuries
are fractured cheekbones, fractures around her orbital socket round
her eye, perforated eardrum, cracked ribs and extensive bruising
to her face and back and throat.
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