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Mugabe thugs killed and mutilated MDC youth activists
Jan Raath, The Times (UK)
June 20, 2008

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/africa/article4174192.ece

The mutilated bodies of four young men bore witness yesterday to the latest atrocities of the Mugabe regime in the run-up to next week's elections. The victims were murdered while defending the home of a local leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), as the campaign of terror against the opposition reached a new pitch. They represent the most deaths in a single day since Robert Mugabe lost the presidential elections ten weeks ago. Three of the men were MDC youth activists in the sprawling dormitory township of Chitungwiza about 20 miles south of Harare. The fourth was a passer-by, abducted because he did not know the secret slogans and salutes used by the ruling Zanu PF youth organisation to identify supporters. All four had their skulls smashed, and some had their lips and genitals cut off. The bodies of Archford Chipiyo, 28, the son of Philemon Chipiyo, the district chairman of the MDC in Chitungwiza, Yona Genti and the unidentified young man, were found in tall grass at the side of the main southbound road out of Harare about midday on Wednesday. The body of the fourth, Nyoni Light, was dumped near a shopping centre on the outskirts of Chitungwiza.

The township, with a population of more than a million, has been the scene of numerous petrol bombings, abductions and assaults in the past week as Zanu PF mobs drag mostly young people out of their homes and force them to join them, marching and sloganeering through the night. Philemon Chipiyo, 59, a respected alderman for the Chitungwiza town council for the last 25 years, said that about 200 Zanu PF youths attacked his home at midnight on Tuesday, but were repulsed by his guards. "They came back again later, with five pick-up trucks and a [Mercedes] Benz," he said. The latter is usually used by senior Zanu PF officials. "They smashed down the wall, and they were firing shots." Mr Chipiyo produced a live round found inside the house, as well as a stabbing spear left behind. Along the wall of a long corridor were long smears of blood. One of the [MDC] young men pulled me out of the house and we ran away, but my son and the other three ran into the house, and they were trapped and beaten there." The four young men were forced on to trucks and taken away by militias chanting slogans of Mr Mugabe's party, witnesses said. They were last seen by a neighbour being taken to a nearby creche, used as a Zanu PF base. Police were called, but did not arrive, Mr Chipiyo said. He went to report to a nearby police station a few hours later, at 7am. "They came but they did nothing. The next we heard was that the bodies were in the mortuary."

He sent one of his sons, Alban, to Harare central hospital mortuary to identify the bodies found next to the road. "Alban said Archford's lips were gone and his eyes were pulled out," he said. Austin Chipiyo, another son, went to Chitungwiza hospital to identify the body of Ngoni Light. "His head was also broken," he said. "His genitals had been taken off. They were in his trousers. I saw it myself." A day after the attack on the Chipiyos, three opposition councillors in Chitungwiza were forced to flee with their families when their homes were set alight by petrol bombs. They escaped unhurt. Torture and the mutilation of bodies appears to be a new tactic employed by Mr Mugabe's mobs. Amnesty International reported that 12 bodies had been found in Zimbabwe yesterday. Most had been tortured to death, it said. Two weeks ago Dadirai Chipiro, the wife of an MDC official in Mhondoro communal area 100 miles south of Harare, had her hands and feet chopped off by Zanu PF attackers who then threw her into her hut and firebombed it. She was incinerated. On Monday this week the body of Abigail Chiroto, 27, was found dumped on a farm with her head so severely smashed that she was unrecognisable. Mrs Chiroto, the wife of the opposition mayor-elect of Harare, and her four-year-old son Ashley had been seized from their house in the suburb of Hatcliffe. The boy, who was left at a nearby police station, told family members that he saw his mother being blindfolded and taken into the bush. When her body was found, she was still wearing a blindfold.

In Chitungwiza Mr Chipiyo was stoically receiving mourners, weeping as he walked around the rooms of his large house, gutted by petrol bombs thrown as the attackers left. Doors and furniture had been smashed. "They stole all my clothing, my blankets, my TV, my DVD," he said. Observers from African observer missions visited the house on Wednesday. "After what I've seen in the few days I've been here, my life will never be the same," said one. "Chitungwiza is terrible," said a young nurse, her eyes wide with fear. "Last week they dragged my sister out of her house in the middle of the night and marched her with many people, who they also pulled out of their houses, to Zanu PF headquarters" - a distance of 20 miles. "They had to sing and chant slogans and salute all the way. "When they were there, they were told that on election day, your name will be taken at the gate of the polling station, and when you come out you have to give them the number of your voting paper so we know how you voted." Ballot papers in Zimbabwe's electoral system each have a unique number that is torn off a matching counterfoil, a system designed to ensure the validity of ballot papers.

The arrival of observer missions from the Pan-African Parliament and the Southern African Development Community has done nothing to restrain the violence. In elections since 2000, Zanu PF has switched off the mobs and their attacks as soon as observers appeared, giving the impression of a tranquil election environment. "Everybody hates Mugabe," said a resident. "People are frightened, but they don't want to vote for him." "My bags are packed," said a young teacher. "I am going to vote and if it turns out the wrong way, I am leaving this country. There will be nothing for me here with Mugabe." The wave of government-sponsored violence has left no part of Zimbabwe untouched. Residents of Harare's prosperous suburbs reported gangs of militants forcing maids and their families to attend meetings known as pungwes, a colloquial term for all-night political indoctrination. "It shows how desperate Mugabe is," said a Western diplomat. "He really is scared of losing the election, and the more people are beaten, the more determined many of them seem to become. He doesn't care that all this is being witnessed and condemned by African observer missions, he is determined to win at any cost."

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