Back to Index

This article participates on the following special index pages:

Beaten for voting the wrong way: how Zanu PF is taking revenge in rural areas
Chris McGreal, The Guardian (UK)
April 16, 2008

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/16/zimbabwe

It is called Operation Makavhoterapapi - Shona for 'Where did you put your cross?' - and it descended on 15-year-old Privilege Chikwana as she was doing her homework. Privilege was too young to have voted in Zimbabwe's still unresolved election but her mother did and the men at the door suspected she voted the wrong way. So they took the child back to the school in Chiwaka village where scores of Zanu PF activists were holding opposition supporters prisoner and started beating her. "They beat her on the buttocks with wooden rods, beat her and beat her because they said she was hiding me. Men were doing this," said Privilege's mother, Faustina Chikwana. "When I heard they had taken her to the school I went straight there. There was a big group of Zanu PF, about 100. They had drums. They were singing. They grabbed me and they had a list of where we voted. That's when it started."

Chikwana and her daughter are now in a private Harare hospital hardly able to move because of the injuries inflicted on them as a wave of state-sponsored terror sweeps rural Zimbabwe to punish voters for supporting the opposition and to ensure that if there is a run-off presidential election they do not repeat their mistake. Scattered around the same hospital are others who have survived the systematic punishment beatings and burnings but with terrible injuries. They include Mike Mavhura, whose hands are swollen, bloodied and seared after burning grass was piled on him and his arms were broken in several places. A little way down the corridor is Daniel Muchuchuti, a 62-year-old retired major from the Zimbabwean army and village head, being treated for broken ribs. On the floor below is Linus Mubwanda, whose brother was beaten to death in front of him.

They are from diverse parts of rural Zimbabwe - Mashonaland to Manicaland and the Mozambican border - and they are just a fraction of the many hundreds of people the opposition says have been assaulted as gangs of armed Zanu PF supporters under military leadership move through the countryside using polling station returns from the election nearly three weeks ago to identify villages where support for the opposition was strong. Many hundreds more have been forced from their homes. War veterans burned the houses of 30 families in Centenary. Those who have tried to report the attacks to the police have sometimes themselves been arrested. Chikwana, 38, says she is not an opposition activist and that her vote is her secret. But not secret enough. There were two polling stations in Chiwaka. The one in the centre appeared to be correctly run but the other, on the edge of the village, raised suspicions. Ahead of the elections Zanu PF was telling people that they should vote there.

"When they were beating me they wanted to know why I didn't go to their polling station. They said to me: there we could see how you put your vote, if you vote in the other place it's secret and that means you voted for the opposition. They said they knew how people voted in that polling station from the figures and it wasn't for Zanu PF," she said. "They said we must vote for Zanu PF. If you don't vote Zanu PF you must go away. They said we were selling the country to the whites." Chikwana said that the Zanu PF supporters also burned four houses in the area. "I recognised some of the people in the group. There were war vets and village men, councillors from Zanu PF. They brought people from villages all around to the school and were beating them," said Chikwana. "They beat us for at least an hour then they took us to a large room and kept us there with other people they had beaten. We were there for about six hours. Then they said we could go but we couldn't walk. We were crawling out the door."

Zanu PF arrived at Felix Gutima's door in Baradze village at about midnight. He is the ward secretary for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. "They smashed in the door and entered the house. They demanded the party register. They told me they were on Operation Makavhoterapapi. It means: where did you put your cross?" They said they were finding out how people voted. They wanted to use that register to track down our members," said Gutima. "I'd already hidden it and when I wouldn't show it they attacked me. They hit me with wood and iron bars." Mike Mavhura, an opposition activist, was dragged from his small general store in Musaruro village. "They came and broke down the door and dragged me out and beat me. They threw burning grass on to my body. They said: you are an MDC member so we want to give you a reason to change your mind," he said. "After that they broke all the windows in my store and took the goods."

The four men and two women who attacked Mavhura, 22, left him with extensive burns and deep lacerations on his arms and hands. The ends of his fingers are bloodied and burned from trying to snatch off the burning grass. The men also beat him severely with wooden rods, particularly his buttocks and arms, leaving him with four broken bones in his left hand and two fractured fingers on his right. One feature of the beatings is that very few people are killed. It would appear that Zanu PF has learned that deaths attract attention. But there has been at least one killing in the past few days. Tapiwa Mubwanda was the MDC district chairman in Mhfreyenyoka village in the north of the country. He was bludgeoned to death on Saturday as his brother Linus, another opposition activist, was beaten next to him. "They said it was to teach us how to vote," said Linus, 58. "They said: 'It's your own fault, voting for the opposition. That's why we are doing all these things to you. When we have the run-off you will know how to vote'."

Zimbabwe's opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, yesterday shifted tack and said he would participate in a run-off election against Robert Mugabe, but only if the poll and count were monitored by international observers. The Movement for Democratic Change had previously rejected a second round on the grounds that its own calculations showed Tsvangirai had won outright in the election more than 18 days ago. The state-run electoral commission has still to release the official count. An opposition call for a general strike to demand the immediate release of the election results flopped yesterday with almost all shops and businesses open. But the MDC received a boost in South Africa where the ruling African National Congress broke with President Thabo Mbeki and declared the situation in Zimbabwe to be "dire". It backed the opposition's call for the election results to be released "without any further delay". Mbeki said at the weekend that there was no crisis in Zimbabwe and described the election results delays as "normal". The new ANC leadership, far more critical of Mugabe than Mbeki, yesterday said it would make contact directly with Mugabe's Zanu PF and the MDC in an attempt to settle the crisis.

Please credit www.kubatana.net if you make use of material from this website. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License unless stated otherwise.

TOP