Mercy mission halted by militia torturers

Written by James

Saturday, 31 May 2008 08:57

MUTASA
An MDC driver and youth secretary have been arrested and tortured as they set off on a mercy mission to help people injured by youth militia members and war veterans.
Godwin Sithole and Denis Simango were on their way to Mutasa to provide transport for MDC supporters who had had their limbs broken in recent attacks when Zanu youth militias, camped at the Ministry of Youth Development Offices in Mutasa, spotted their car. The gangs blocked it in all directions and the two men were grabbed by two senior officers. Seven youths, who had come to the rescue of the party's white Isuzu pick-up, were also attacked. The group was threatened by war veterans armed with machetes, logs, iron bars and rifles, including an AK47.
Lloyd Munguma, an MDC activist in the area, said one police officer was beaten after he tried to reason with the war veterans.
Sithole and Simango were then handed over to police custody.
Torture and trauma - a double-edged sword
With mass beatings, torture on a widespread scale and thousands being displaced, it is certain that the run-off election in Zimbabwe will be neither free nor fair. But, writes our special correspondent, group torture is also having an untold effect on the psychological health of the nation.
A report by the Zimbabwe Peace Project (ZPP) on the spread and scale of the onslaught of state-sponsored violence since the March 29 elections makes grim reading. Zimbabwe seems to be a country divided into torturers and their victims.
A conservative estimate by an NGO, which has been documenting the impact of violence on victims in Zimbabwe for the past four decades, shows that one in 10 people in Zimbabwe is either a torture survivor or has witnessed some form of violence.
Zimbabweans are no strangers to violence. Many experienced or witnessed torture during the liberation war of the 1970s. In the 1980s, Mugabe committed quasi-genocide on the members of the minority tribe, the Matabele, in order to cement his position and ensure a one-party state. The man who proudly proclaims that he has degrees in violence learned valuable lessons from this period and has used torture and intimidation to ensure the compliance of a downtrodden population, from the farm invasions in 1998 until the present day.
The nature of the violence is truly sickening. Most disturbingly, schools are being shut down across the country and set up as torture bases. Young people, Zanu (FPF) youth, across the country are being recruited and trained to torture their own people. Villagers are being rounded up in the middle of the night with their children and taken to the bases where they are tortured and made to sing liberation sings whilst being beaten. They are often forced to participate in the beatings of their friends and family.
As a result, thousands are fleeing their homes. The ZPP say that most are small-scale farmers who leave their fields, livestock and property unattended and this has created untold psychological trauma for individuals. In some cases victims have abandoned children while trying to save their lives but this has resulted in these children being taken and held at torture bases as ransom.
In some areas, the victims of violence were as young as three. One child is reported to have been killed and many more are traumatised after the burning of their homes.
SACST's report says: Survivors of organised violence and torture represent a disabled group which may require targeted assistance by the State in order to overcome the social adversity that they experience. Victims of torture are unable to fully contribute to the economy because of the physical and psychological trauma resulting from torture.
It is clear that a lot needs to be done for victims of torture in Zimbabwe. Care of the psychological and physical health must be given to those who were brave enough to use their votes, and suffer the consequences, for the political freedom of the country.

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