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Prison
Diary July 29 - August 05, 2002
Shane Kidd
Thursday 1st August
Up early in the morning to
deposit blankets, collect clothes and another haircut with blunt
scissors for me, then a quick cup of tea and mouldy bread for breakfast.
The Pasture Institute should study this bread. I’m sure there are
as yet undiscovered funguses of medical or hallucinogenic value
here. The colours are magnificent. Every shade of green, blue and
black and if you’re particularly lucky, some truly vibrant yellows.
Then it’s back into manacles and off to court where the entertainment
is provided by the PP’s star witness, Detective Constable Mushwete.
The PP puts him through his paces for an hour, telling the court
what dangerous criminals we are and our propensity for violence.
Mushwete glibly tells half truths and lies throughout his testimony
and looks happy with himself. Arnold and Co then proceed to tear
him apart for the next 2 hours, catching him out on all sorts of
lies and contradictions and backing him into some very interesting
corners. DISPOL Mabunda is in the gallery listening. He eventually
walks out in disgust, realizing he’s made a serious oopps and one
assumes that he is going in search of a more fluent liar to put
on the stand.
At lunch we are carted back off to prison.
The police and prison service seem wary of us because of the large
crowds at court. So for our entire incarceration we have our own
closed transport which is a blessing because the winter rains have
moved in and it’s really miserable weather. Once again I find myself
in the role of group pessimist, trying to convince the rest of the
group that we are not going to get out any time soon and they should
prepare themselves for at least a 2 week stay. They are all convinced
that they will be out by the end of today.
Being confined to the cells for most
of the day is mind numbingly boring and cold. It’s only at meal
times that I have a chance to talk to John and catch up with acquaintances
made during my last visit. Even these opportunities are limited
because D class are not meant to associate with the rest of the
prison population. Some of my previous cellmates have been released
and others convicted. Isaiah the street kid from Chimani is still
in but they have moved him back to C class and will be transporting
him to a juvenile facility in Mutare next week. Bongo walks around
like a Zombie. The Prozac seems to have taken it’s toll. Isaiah
is amazing. I have never seen a kid who can eat as much as him.
I normally give him my food and the other prisoners give him whatever
is left over. There are 2 main meals a day and he consumes at least
3 full plates of food at each sitting. A normal hungry adult will
only do a plate and a half. In an effort to make the meals more
entertaining and nutritional, the cooks have decided to add stones
to the beans so you have to be careful how you chew otherwise you
end up spitting out teeth. Caught up with Roddy who has been languishing
in jail for the last 4 weeks for possession of stolen property.
He has been trying to get a bail hearing. He’s lost his dreadlocks
but is otherwise okay. The Chimani police have also been playing
silly buggers with him, claiming that he is a Mozambican of no fixed
address to try and deny him bail. I told him I would get hold of
Allen and see what I can do.
In our cell are some army deserters awaiting
court marshal. They are basically fed up with the way the army is
treating them and have no desire to go back to the DRC. One of them
was telling me that between 9,000 & 10,000 Zimbabwean soldiers
were killed up there between 98/99 when the fighting was fiercest.
Even allowing for exaggeration and inaccuracies it’s a far larger
figure than I expected. I asked them if any one was actually fighting
for the Congolese people or some quaint ideology like democracy.
The answer is no, everyone is fighting for diamonds or gold. Well,
at least their objectives are simple.
Friday 2nd August
Back to court in the morning
for the summing up of the bail hearing, then back to prison in the
afternoon. Birgit and the lawyer arrive in the afternoon and tell
us that the determination will be read 4pm on Monday, so it’s another
weekend in jail. This is really playing hell with my golf handicap.
The weekend is mostly uneventful, just
really cold and wet. The high point is the cell search on Saturday
morning. After everyone is searched individually we are all put
in the dining hall while the cells are searched. I’m called out
of the dining hall and shown a package. One of the prisoners has
taken some of my hair from the hair cut on Thursday morning and
wrapped it up in toilet paper to use for "mashonga"
African spiritual medicine. I found it hilarious but the guards
took it quiet seriously. Hey what do they want me to do, stop growing
my hair?
The other high point is church on Sunday
(me looking forward to church, things must be bad). Anything to
get out of the cells for a while, I decide to take the church as
an opportunity to use the toilet for the first time since Monday
and hopefully have some privacy. I’m quietly perched on the throne
meditating when the guard comes in and wants to know what I’m doing.
Having explained the obvious he departs only to be followed 2 minutes
later by another guard. When the fourth guard arrives with the same
query I eventually lose it. If you *?£@:$*!*& gentlemen of leisure
would leave me in bloody peace I’ll be out when I’m finished. At
last I’m left in peace. I suppose it only goes to show that if you
are loud and eloquent enough, all language barriers fall away and
you can be understood.
Monday 5th August
Back to court in the morning
and spend a dreary day in the court cells waiting for our case to
come up. A certain amount of light entertainment is supplied when
the new prisoners arrive. Amongst them are some ZANU (PF) youth
who have been arrested for assaulting people in town and 3 individuals
who claim to be representatives of the ZFTU (Mugabe’s personal trade
union movement). For the last 2 weeks they have been causing strikes
and havoc in Chipinge. Various farmers have been locked up and some
crops have been burnt, money has been extorted, businesses and farm
workers have been fleeced of joining fees and subs. When one of
the top ZFTU officials is called down from Harare to mediate he
is introduced to these three. He looks askance at them and says
"We don’t have a branch of the ZFTU in Chipinge and we’ve never
collected any dues in this area." So our 3 brethren are throw
into jail, much to the delight of John and the MDC guys who start
playing payback. This goes on for about an hour until the prison
officers sensibly decide to move them into the next cell.
At 4 pm we are eventually taken into
court to hear the determination. The interesting thing is the way
the Magistrate tears the PP’s case apart, particularly casting doubt
on the credibility of Detective Constable Mushwete’s testimony.
We end up with $20,000 bail each. So it’s back to the prison for
clearing and we eventually get out at about 7pm to be greeted by
family and lawyers. Before leaving I tell the prison officers to
keep my cell warm and find some decent cloths, because the local
council election are in September and because I’m standing for Chimanimani,
I’m bound to be back (the only reason I’ve agreed to stand is because
it will be warm in September.) Like McCarthy "I will return."
Afterthought
Without being overly paranoid,
the Government is out to get me and those of similar political persuasion.
What fascinates me is their ineptitude. Consider DISPOL Mabunda
is in overall charge of Police and the Central Intelligence Organisation
etc. in the Chipinge District. The whole DISPOL set up has recently
been revamped with a view to promoting politically overzealous officers
to push the ZANU (PF) agenda. With all the resources at their disposal,
they can’t even put together a decent frame up. It’s only fair to
assume that they are representative of the current crop of zealots
running the country. Consider Comrade Made, the Minister of Agriculture,
who has been shouting from the rooftops for the last 2 years that
there will be no food shortages and that the newly installed peasant
farmers will feed the nation despite the fact that the government
has given them no inputs or infrastructure. The worrying thing is
that not only is he toeing the party line (understandable) but probably
actually believes what he says. The phrase "the only circus
in the world run by the clowns" springs to mind.
I’m now worth $30,000 in bail. I’m actually
quite proud of that until I convert it to £s at the black market
rate and it’s only £30. Hell I could get more money selling blood.
I’ve now spent 33 days in jail/cells in the last 3 months. The bet
book at the club is running double or nothing by the end of the
year.
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