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Prison Diary July 29 - August 05, 2002
Shane Kidd

Should you wish to make use of any part of this diary, please contact Shane Kidd on shanekid@mutare.mweb.co.zw

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Dot dot dash dash dot dot. Good evening Zimbabwe and all ships at sea, this is Shane Kidd (apologies to Walter Winchell) with the latest up date on law and order in Chimanimani. Yes you guessed it. I fell down the rabbit hole again.

Monday 29^th July
8.30am beautiful sunny Monday morning, doing some admin at home when my own personal cloud arrived hooting at the gate, in the form of the police land rover with a constable and 2 sergeants. I wander up to see what they wanted. The new member in charge Assistant Inspector Mupfururirwa would like to interview me.

Not being a complete fool I go back to the house and phone Arnold Tzunga my lawyer and give him notice that the circus is about to start again. I then get Birgit out of bed, she down with flu and a 40 degree temperature and I tell her I need a witness. 30 minutes later when we get to the car the police are still resolutely parked outside the gate. So we drive up to the police station with them following behind. We arrive at the charge office. I greet every one but get no response and walk thru to Mupfururirwa’s office. Mupfururirwa is in the process of replacing Chagugudzo our previous Member in Charge who because of his ineptitude and ability to attract bad publicity has been transferred to Beitbridge, or so he informed me when he arrested me 2 weeks ago.

Having greeted Mupfururirwa we sit down and ask what he wants. He asks when was the last time I was in Chipinge? I tell him Friday 26^th.You can tell he’s the Sherlock Holmes of the Zimbabwe Republic Police, gifted with a vast intellect, incisive mind and a dogged determination to chase down the truth regardless of cost or consequences. After considering my answer for at least, oh 3 seconds he announces that I’m under arrest. When I ask why he tells me that I’m wanted for contravening the Public Order and Security Act, POSA in Chipinge, but won’t elaborate beyond that. Birgit goes of to phone Arnold and I go to the charge office for the familiar arrest routine (I’m getting really rather good at it.). Shortly afterwards I’m escorted to the cell to join my mate the rapist who’s still there from 2 weeks ago (I wonder if any one actually knows were he is). Anyway our mutual language skills have not advanced since our last encounter so we grunt at one another, share the blankets and settle down on the concrete floor to get some rest.

The rest of the day is uneventful except for lunch arriving at 12pm which I refuse because I’m now back on hunger strike. I think that Zimbabwean police stations have set some sort of bench mark in the world of institutional catering and sanitation. Its one of the few countries in the world were a hunger strike is a sensible alternative as opposed to a moral choice.

Birgit meanwhile is playing another wonderful Zimbabwean Police game, "hunt the prisoner". Having gone back to the house, phoned Arnold, changed etc., she arrives back at the police station at 10am and is told by Sgt. Mpofu that I have already been transferred thru to Chipinge 75km to the south. Birgit picks up Lovemore Mbiri at the MDC office and starts travelling. On arriving at ZRP Chipinge she is told that I’m not in the cells and they suggest CID. She spends the rest of the day running around ZRP, CID, CIO and the courts in Chipinge trying to find me but to no avail. At 4pm she decides to go back and try ZRP Chimanimani again. When she arrives back the duty liars have knocked off work and there is only a junior constable who has not been entrusted with this sacred responsibility. Birgit ask were I am and he happily tells her I’m in the cells, would she like to see me. After her visit its back to a comfortable rest on the concrete.

At about 10pm the cell door rattles, its 4 armed uniformed policemen and 2 plain clothes (could be CID or Law and Order from Mutare). They tell me I’m being transferred to Chipinge. They give me my shoes etc. then handcuff my hands behind my back and bundle me into ZRP land rover ZRP 886 A or D. Once I’m in the vehicle they start to blind fold me with a triangular bandage. This takes about 10 minutes (for God’s sake it’s 2 wraps and a simple knot, how difficult can this be.) Once the blind fold is in place the 2 plain cloths individuals start threatening me and telling me how I’m being taken to a secret location to be killed. At this stage my heart goes out to them, so much effort for such abysmally poor results. This needs to be put in to some sort of context. Imagine these 2 getting out of bed in the morning and looking at each other.

What can I say, they weally, weally need to pwactice! 2 minutes later the blindfold falls of so they eventually use it to tie a jacket over my head and I’m pushed down onto the floor of the land rover. We then settle down for an hour and a half journey with the occasional death threat thrown in to lighten the atmosphere.

The blindfold is a complete waste of time. Anyone familiar with Chimanimani district knows that there are only 5 main road junctions in a radius of 150 km so I knew I was in Middle Sabi before the vehicle stopped. At about midnight I’m thrown into the police cell with12 other people and 4 blankets. Middle Sabi is lowveld, which means the winter nights are warm - this is good. Middle Sabi is lowveld, which means the nights are warm and humid - this is bad. It gives a whole new meaning to the word ‘body’ when we talk about the aroma rising from the cell’s single non-functioning latrine! We eventually put 3 blankets on the concrete to sleep on and use 1 to cover our heads to minimise the effect of the latrine’s bouquet. This leaves the rest of our body for the undernourished mosquitoes to feed on, choices, choices!

Tuesday 30^th July
Wake up and start getting to know everyone in the cell. There are a couple of chicken thieves and miscellaneous offenders but the majority have been picked up in a swoop of Chipinge the previous day. One of them is Phineas Muzaruwetu a security guard at the Chipinge Govt complex and he relates the following story.

He’s on duty at the gate at about 9pm Saturday night when he hears a strange spluttering and spitting emanating from one of 3 tractors parked in the complex’s car park about 30 m away. He goes down to investigate and sees sparks coming from the battery area of the central tractor, so he rushes in to the main building which houses CID, CIO, District Police (DISPOL is in overall charge of the police in Chipinge /Chimanimani area.) and has officers representing each section on 24 hour duty to raise the alarm. They wonder out to admire the show but don’t do anything constructive. The security guard then rushes up to the police station about 300m up the road to inform them that there is a problem. Whilst making the report there is a loud explosion.

The police eventually get moving and the fire brigade is called and everyone returns to the complex to the sight of 3 blazing tractors and a select audience of govt police and security officials who actually haven’t done anything to stop it. The fire brigade arrives looks amazed "what do you mean you want water?" and departs hastily in search of said commodity. The farce eventually comes to an end when there is nothing left of the tractors to burn. The security guard and his co worker, Ratidzai Zarura, are promptly put in the cells. The rest of the Chipinge people picked up in the sweep on Sunday and Monday are all in the cells because of these tractors.

The rest of the day and night is uneventful for me and the others, just lying around the cells killing mosquitoes. I did tell the Middle Sabi Member in Charge that I was due in court for another remand hearing on Wednesday morning at 8.30 but he just ignored me. Birgit meanwhile is playing her second game of hunt the prisoner after having not found me in the Chimanimani cells in the morning. She is again told that I am in Chipinge. After a fruitless day of searching, she and Arnold eventually go back to Chimani and demanded to inspect the cells. This is after giving Mupfururirwa a piece of her mind in all the languages at her command. She eventually gets into the cell where there are 6 prisoners and Birgit lifts up all the blankets to make sure that I’m not there. Birgit goes to bed, still not knowing where I am.

Wednesday 31^st July
Mentally I’ve settled down and figured out that I’m going to be hidden away for at least another week. Arnold gets hold of Birgit who is getting fairly frantic by now. She is at court at 8.30 in the morning when I was due to appear for a remand hearing on the Mwale arson case. Obviously I don’t appear and the court issues a warrant of arrest for me. Arnold tells her that he’ll sort things out. On arriving in Chipinge he goes straight to DISPOL Mabunda with an URGENT EX PARTE application which details the run-around that the police have been giving him with denials, obfuscation and outright lies reference my whereabouts. The application demands that he produces me unconditionally within 2 hours or face the wrath of the courts. Mabunda chickens out and a vehicle is sent to Middle Sabi to collect me and the others.

We go straight to CID where I’m eventually informed that I am being charged with the burning of the 3 tractors worth $30,000,000 - the fact that I was on bar duty in Chimanimani with 20 witnesses at the time is immaterial. I also see Arnold for the first time. We then go to the police station where the final accused are all collected and taken to court. Surprise, surprise! John, a white coffee farmer who wants to remain nameless, is amongst the accused. How nice to find another member of the ethnic minority is in the crap with me. Am I starting a trend? The rest of the gang are Phineas Muzaruwetu and Ratidzai Zarura - the 2 security guards on duty that night; Prosper Mutseyami, Daniel Ngorima and Zechariah Makoni - 3 prominent MDC party members in Chipinge; John and myself. Things are picking up. I started off 3 ½ months ago as one, and then became a member of the Famous Five. I’ve now been promoted to the Magnificent Seven, what next, the Legion of the Dammed? We are deposited in the courthouse cells to await the bail hearing. The others spend a lot of time protesting their innocence and how unfair life is. I couldn’t be bothered. It will eventually dawn on them that if they are MDC members or farmers they are legitimate targets for police harassment in this day and age. Birgit manages to get some food into the cells and I have my first meal since Sunday night.

At 4.00pm we are dragged into court for the bail hearing. The Public Prosecutor (PP) starts with the normal nonsense of telling the court what dangerous and devious criminal we are, using the pending cases against us that he hasn’t bothered try yet, and volunteering to put the investigating officer on the stand to bolster his case. We run out of time and will have to come back tomorrow. So we are cuffed in pairs with leg irons and handcuffs and carted off to Chipinge prison where I’m greeted like an old friend.

We go through the normal routine of stripping down and registering for prison. The only surprise is to find that we have been promoted to D class prisoners because of the value of the alleged crime. This is right up there with the murderers, armed robbers and rapists. This means that there is a basic change in our living conditions. When we go to the cells at night our rags (clothes are too strong a word) are taken away and we sleep only with our blankets. At 6.30 am we march naked across the yard, deposit our blankets in the store room and collect our clothes, then march back across the yard naked to our cell where we are counted in. Once inside the cell we can put on our clothes and except for meals, official functions and searches, we spend the rest of the day in the cell bored out of our minds.

There is this funny little ritual that all D class prisoners have to do before entering the cell in the evening. You are lined up outside the cell door naked with your blankets over your shoulder. When your name is called you run to the door, throw your blankets through, then jump up in the air clapping your hands above your head and spreading your legs at the same time. If the prison officer (PO) is not suitably impressed, you get a beating and have to do it again. I watched these performances last time I was in and decided then, sod this for a game of soldiers. When my name is called I walk to the door throw my blankets in and walk in afterward. The PO calls me out, starts ranting and raving. I tell him that I don’t perform circus tricks, turn around and walk back into the cell. For the rest of my stay I’m the official exception to the rule.

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