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Arrest
and detention in Zimbabwe - Diary of the events from February 23
- April 12, 2002
Hans Christen
Saturday 2nd March 2002
My bail application was delivered
to the High Court by our new lawyer, Andrew Mugandiwa, from the
law firm Winterton’s. The prison routine followed its usual pattern.
We were given bread for breakfast, which meant that there would
be many people smoking in the cells later. Smokers sell their slice
of bread for a cigarette – even non-smokers realise the barter value
of this commodity. In fact, cigarettes can buy almost anything in
prison. A cigarette is worth a cup of tea or a piece of meat (on
the few occasions when a tiny portion of pork from the prison’s
pig farm is served with the evening meal of sadza). Two cigarettes
will purchase a plate of sadza from a fellow inmate or a newly repaired
pair of shorts from the convicts in the tailoring section.
After breakfast I lined up as usual (in
the squatting position) at the dispensary where my medication was
kept. The fifty or so prisoners who line up daily with their various
ailments are invariably given a Panadol or similar painkiller. The
dispensary’s nursing sister is understandably fed-up as many prisoners
invent ailments to relieve the boredom or for a chance to ogle at
her! I was given a card from the dispensary instructing the kitchen
staff to prepare rice for me twice a day, in place of the usual
sadza. This was a great relief as the sadza is made from "straight-run"
maize meal – unrefined and not at all pleasant. As one of the convicts
said to me, it has "no additions and no subtractions".
After lunch I had my head shaved with
hand clippers by one of the convicts who works in the barber’s section
– a corner of the remand enclosure where one squats on the ground
whilst being ministered to by the barber. The sick prisoner lay
on his blankets all day, apart from when his friends carried him
to the dispensary. There he was given an assortment of pills which
he could not hold down for more than a few minutes. After lunch,
most of the cell inmates held an impromptu Church service and prayed
fervently for him.
Jenny was not allowed to bring food –
on Saturdays and Sundays no "goodies" are allowed. The
copies of The Daily News and a copy of Newsweek that Jenny had delivered
were brought to my cell by one of the convicts from "Reception
Staff". They were all heavily censored, with all "offending"
articles neatly cut out with a pair of scissors. Likewise, a novel,
John Grisham’s "A Painted House" was brought to me only
after careful scrutiny by the prison censors.
The newspapers almost caused an uproar
in the cell. Prisoners are so starved of reading material that they
practically fought over the loose single pages of newspaper. Once
read, the pages were carefully torn up and distributed amongst the
smokers so that they could roll cigarettes from the raw tobacco
leaf or "gombototo" which somehow finds its way into the
cells.
Prisoners are afforded some relief from
the boredom by unpicking the stitching on the edge of their blankets.
This thread they then use to repair their torn clothing with the
help of a matchstick fashioned into a crude needle. As usual, at
8pm I placed my cigarettes, lighter and other "valuables"
under my blanket or squirreled them into the rolled up blanket that
served as a pillow. I had been advised by Dominic the cell "prefect"
to do this to avoid nocturnal theft. The sick prisoner again retched
throughout the night.
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