By our Sokwanele Reporter

28 June 2004

UN Day in support of the victims of torture

Saturday (26^th June) was the United Nations Day in support of the victims of torture, and the occasion was marked by two major events drawing attention to the plight of torture victims in Zimbabwe.  In London there was a service at St Martin’s in-the-Fields which was addressed by several Zimbabweans who were able to speak at first-hand of the brutality of the Mugabe regime – the service being followed by a procession of several hundred to the Zimbabwe Embassy where wreaths were laid for the victims and songs of protest were sung under a banner photo of Mugabe headed “Wanted for Murder”

 

A service was also held at St Mary’s Cathedral in Bulawayo on the same day.  Organised by Christians Together for Justice and Peace (C.T.J.P) it drew together a large crowd of worshippers.  The congregation was addressed by Sheba Dube a noted human rights activist, Fr Barnabas Nqindi, an Anglican priest who chairs C.T.J.P and the world-renowned Catholic Archbishop, Pius Ncube.  The speakers called for an end to the continuing cycle of violence that had plagued the country from the colonial era to the present. They spoke of the culture of impunity which the present regime has encouraged by repeatedly granting amnesties to the perpetrators of gross human rights’ abuses, and said it was high time Zimbabwe adopted the UN Convention against Torture.  (In 2001 Parliament voted to adopt the Convention but the Executive has never done so).   Archbishop Pius spoke with deep emotion of the 4 million Zimbabweans forced to live outside the country, many living in abject poverty and without hope in South Africa. He touched on the widespread starvation which looms a few months ahead when the present, reduced harvest runs out.  “I am under torture myself”, he said, “when I see so much suffering in this country”.

 

Banners in support of the UN convention against torture lined the Cathedral and there were enlarged photos on the pillars depicting the gruesome injuries inflicted on some of the recent victims. Conspicuous however by their absence were the victims themselves who had been billed to address the congregation.  Nor was the reason for their absence hard to find.  Quite simply they were terrified to speak of their ordeal for fear that they would suffer further violence at the hands of a brutal regime.  Under the police state conditions now obtaining in Zimbabwe it was to be expected that several CIO (secret police) agents would be present at any such gathering, and it has often happened in the past that when torture victims have given their testimony in public they have been visited by further violence later.  (The young mother who bravely testified of multiple rape at a youth militia camp and named some of the perpetrators two years ago had to be spirited away immediately after the service and later moved to South Africa for her own protection).  Though the rest of the congregation was not aware of it, there were in fact a number of torture victims sitting among them silently observing the proceedings. 

 

One victim of horrific violence was not even willing to take that chance though he did agree to talk to some of the clergy before the service.  I will call him Paul though that is not his real name.  Paul is a young man.  He spoke with difficulty because both upper and lower jaw had been smashed by his assailants. Clearly imprinted on his back was the mark left by a belt, and his right hand was visibly damaged.  His feet were lacerated such that he could only walk with great difficulty.  And the reason for this appalling brutality?  Paul was known as an MDC supporter in the Lupane area where he lives.  Before the recent by-election in that constituency (adjudged peaceful according to Zimbabwean standards) Paul had been abducted by ZANU PF youth militia and war vets and subjected to a severe beating. When MDC youths discovered where he was being held they moved in on his assailants, and in the ensuing struggle in which Paul was rescued from captivity, a number of ZANU PF thugs were injured.  Paul kept a low profile after that but when the election was over (an election in which the ruling party secured a questionable victory) he thought it safe to surface again. Alas he was wrong in that supposition.  The same assailants launched another vicious attack upon him at the Lupane business centre, and it was here he sustained the severe injuries mentioned.  “I expected to die”, he said, and anyone subjected to the same barbaric treatment might well have thought the same.

 

Alas Paul’s ordeal was not yet over. After the attack he was held in the Lupane police station for three days.  For the whole of this time while he remained  in excruciating pain he was given only a few paracetamol from the local clinic on the first day. On the fourth day he was taken to the Magistrate’s Court where he learnt he was to be charged with attempted murder – the charge relating to the time when he was the subject of the vicious attack in the Lupane business centre.  And it was finally here in the Magistrate’s Court  in this tale of unbelievable savagery that a note of compassion enters. The magistrate before whom Paul appeared, having one look at his physical condition, ordered that he be taken to hospital for medical treatment before proceeding with the trial.

 

His jaw now sutured, having lost between three and four kilograms in weight because he is unable to eat any solid food, and still in obvious discomfort, Paul stammered out his story to the assembled clergy in the few minutes before the service began.  The testimony he might have given to the congregation gathered in St Mary’s had he not feared further retribution at the hands of the violent thugs who, in Zimbabwe today, are free to torture, maim or murder with complete impunity.

 

Visit:  www.sokwanele.com