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My
four days inside Mugabe's prisons
Briggs Bomba
November 25, 2005
I was among
the 120 people who were arrested on the ZCTU
led Action Against Poverty demonstration of Tuesday 8 November 2005.
Hundreds of people responded to the call to protest against the
spiraling levels of poverty in a way that marked the beginning of
a new wave of fighting back. Those arrested included township women
with babies on their back (the youngest being only six weeks old),
the disabled on clutches, HIV+ men and women demanding access to
ARVs, Workers demanding a living wage, unemployed youth and other
progressive activists. For raising white banners demanding food
and water to drink we were to spend a nightmarish four days and
three nights behind bars in conditions not fit even for wild dogs.
The following is my testimony.
Tuesday’s action
demonstrated a new confidence to fight back. The poor masses of
Zimbabwe showed that they are sick and tired of the worsening conditions
of acute poverty. This is what the hundreds that gathered at Construction
House and marched boldly defying the heavily armed police who had
been deployed to intimidate showed. The arrival of mean looking
heavily armed riot police was met with courage. No one ran way.
We all resolved to sit down and continued singing raising our placards
and chanting slogans in defiance. When we were told we were being
arrested we all boldly lined up to get onto the trucks. With men
helping women who had babies and the disabled. The police turned
away some of the disabled people on wheelchairs who had also lined
up to be arrested. The senior cops present were clearly pissed at
the self assured and confident manner with which we were taking
every moment and one of them inexplicably just started assaulting
Comrade Munyaradzi Gwisai with a baton stick. Munyaradzi was obviously
targeted as one of the key leaders present but still the people
were not cowed.
The singing
continued and even got louder when we were being driven to the police
station and people on the street were waving back in solidarity.
It was an inspiring act of defiance, a clear signal that the masses
are waking up and beginning to punch back. Other comrades including
disabled people on crutches followed all the way to the police station
and demanded to be arrested. The police were so embarrassed that
they had to turn away twenty disabled people who had handed themselves
over. The ZSF Chairman Regis Mtutu is amongst those who were arrested
at the central police station. The police were clearly overwhelmed
and taken back by the solid determination of the protest.
This is certainly
a sign of the times. The most recent actions by NCA, Students, WOZA
and critically the ZCTU’s announce a new wave of mass struggles.
The militancy and energy that characterized the Southern Africa
Social Forum is now translating into mobilization and action. The
Zimbabwe Social Forum constituencies particularly the HIV/ AIDS
cluster, the youth and people living with disabilities played a
decisive role in the ZCTU action. Now we can only get stronger and
our actions bigger. The Zimbabwe crisis has reached a break point.
The country is writhing in the middle of a severe crisis of neo-liberal
capitalism presided over by a besieged authoritarian regime. Throughout
the action and the thorough discussions we held in cells leftists
ideas were quite popular with the Zimbabwe Social Forum and in particular
ISO Cdes playing a key role in articulating an anti-neo-liberal
ideological line.
On arrival at
the station we were ordered to line up at gunpoint locking into
each other like slaves. We were harassed into stinking filthy cells
heavily infested with bed bugs and lice. The police were clearly
overwhelmed by the big numbers. A simple procedure like taking down
details would take forever. The cops were also clearly demoralized
and looking quite disinterested. Its becoming more and more obvious
that the junior officers are cracking and sympathizing with the
struggling poor masses. The fact is that junior police officers
suffer like all of us, they are getting peanuts while police chiefs
own farms, drive the latest cars on the market and are getting fat
by the minute.
On the first
night of our detention the lawyers had to fight to get us food as
some overzealous officers who on this very late hour still fail
to read the writing on the wall wanted to starve us. They had insisted
on feeding us prison food (the police chiefs would not even give
it to their dogs). A whole new ordeal began sometime after nine
in the evening. We were all ordered onto a lorry packed tightly
like grain bags and the whole time there was a group of tired farm
worker/war veteran looking guys in overalls and worksuits pointing
AK 47 and FN assault rifles at us. We were kept completely in the
dark as to where we were going and throughout the four days such
mystification and information blackout remained a key weapon the
police would use to torture us.
We found ourselves
at Makoni central police station in Chitungwiza. Here we were detained
from Tuesday evening to Friday evening. Chitungwiza has not had
water for the past three months. So we were detained at a place
that had no running water and no working toilets. We were packed
in tiny cages like rats. There wasn’t enough space for everyone
to sit down so we would take turns. Both the women’s and man’s cages
had no toilets so we were given 20 litre plastic buckets to use.
In no time these buckets filled up and one cruel, stupid and overzealous
cop who was on duty completely refused to let us empty the buckets.
The whole night both men and women were calling on deaf ears. By
morning urine was flowing to where people were seated and stupid
officer on duty just ignored the situation. We even threatened to
sue him in his personal capacity for his cruelty but still he was
not moved. The same officer even had the audacity to deny drugs
to those who were on ARVs. This culture of impunity must definitely
be challenged. Such overzealous officers need to be noted down as
special enemies of the people and like those who petrol bombed Chiminya
and killed in cold blood and still got away with it their time to
pay shall come
Our fighting
spirit however remained high. Comrades kept singing defiant revolutionary
songs toyi toying and shaking the whole building. We turned the
cells into rallies with defiant speech after speech right in the
face of the police who were clearly looking scared. We had petty
criminals vowing to join the struggle as soon as they were released.
We were resolute that we will not go back until our demands are
met. Our set of demands put us on a high moral ground. There were
basic socio – economic demands that even the dullest policeman could
see that they were justified. ARVs for people living with HIV, living
wage for workers (including police officers and soldiers who are
getting peanuts), affordable sanitary pads and baby milk, water
for our townships, food for our hungry families and education for
our children. We were also demanding that the government immediately
stop all payment to the IMF and use the scarce foreign currency
to buy basic necessities like medicine, fuel and food. I am one
of those who were called for special interrogation by the intelligence
and still we insisted to them that our struggle is about defending
life itself, a cause we can not turn back on until total victory.
Our singing,
toyi toyi and defiant speeches were clearly getting to the nerves
of senior police officers and a number of times they tried to shut
us up but we were defiant. When they ban us from singing someone
would just break into a revolutionary prayer or story telling and
at the end of it we will all be singing again. The police then decided
to split us into the smaller filthy cells that had been disused
because even by their own judgement they were not fit for human
habitation. We successfully resisted a number of attempts to move
us and the senior officers had to call in the black boots riot police
to forcefully move us. To show how much the regime had panicked,
the riot police had pitched two tents in the grounds of the police
station and were keeping 24 hour armed guard. Every second they
would be a few of the AK 47 wielding black boots manning our cages.
To spite them we all rushed to go out and made them look really
stupid.
My group was
put into a tiny cell that apparently had the only toilet that had
not yet blocked. Like standard rules everywhere we had agreed that
no solids in the toilet more so for us because there was no running
water. However after every few minutes the cops would bring people
who all seemed to have running stomachs. By dawn the sewer had burst
and it was stinking and flowing onto where people were sleeping.
We called and called but the cops were of no help. They would put
on breathing masks to come to the cells but they apparently expected
us to enjoy ourselves.
The regime was
clearly shaken by the impact of the demonstration and was clearly
in a panic mode. First the army was unleashed onto the streets randomly
harassing people and they literally cordoned off parts of town making
them no go areas. In the evening police went on a scorched earth
style rounding up of street kids, vagrants, vendors and prostitutes.
Close to 200 of these were brought to Makoni police station where
we were detained. It is obvious that the regime is afraid that these
people living in the most desperate of conditions will join up with
those who are now fighting back and they cant put out the inferno.
Like with Murambatsvina the strategy is still to preemptively crush
and lock up these people before they start rioting. The obvious
challenge for progressive forces is to bring everyone who is suffering
into the fight. We were already overcrowded before the arrival of
this new group and the situation became totally horrendous. People
were piling on each other like sacks. Those rounded from the streets
included kids as young as three-year-old and they had to struggle
for space in cells that included senile vagrants from the street
and all sorts of people. Quite a number of those who were detained
were workers on their way home who were mistaken for people living
on the streets. These people had no food and drinking water and
on top of that there were no toilets. One of the kids actually fainted.
The situation was totally despicable and calls for a serious investigations
into Zimbabwe’s prisons. If people who have not been convicted of
any crime could be put through this what about convicts. Such gross
human rights violations can not be allowed to continue. The whole
world needs to take a stand against such abuses.
Whilst detained
we came face to face with base police corruption. Truckloads of
goods would come in from the raids on vendors. The seized goods
would include vegetables, eggs, fruits, chickens, clothes and so
on. We saw the police sharing these things right in front of our
eyes and they would put some of the food in the officers’ mess.
The nation deserves an explanation from Chihuri (the police commissioner)
and the Minister of Home Affairs. We can not have police looting
from poor vendors who are desperately trying to survive an acute
economic crisis. It’s criminal and despicably cruel.
Now that we
are out, we are already mobilizing for the next action to coincide
with the world AIDS day on the 1st of December. This
year’s theme is ‘Stop Aids. Keep the promise’. We have resolved
to quadruple the number of those arrested in the last action, so
Mugabe must make room in his cells for at least 500 people. The
solidarity we got from local and regional cdes was powerful. The
emails, faxes and phone calls kept the regime on its toes. We extend
yet another call to comrades in the region for solidarity with the
poor masses of Zimbabwe when we rise again on the 1st
of December.
Shinga Mushandi
Shinga!
Lets get free
or die trying!
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