CHIMANIMANI, Zimbabwe, May 19 (AFP) - Shops are shut, liquor outlets
are
bolted, the tourist tea gardens are empty, teachers have been abducted,
the
sawmill is at a standstill and white residents and farmers have fled.
Militant war veterans have arrived in this once-tranquil hamlet deep
in the
heart of Zimbabwe's eastern highlands.
In just a few days, Chimanimani, some 400 kilometres (250 miles)
southeast
of the capital Harare, has been changed from a thriving timber centre
and
tourist stop-over into a tension-wracked, near-empty spook-town.
A group of liberation war veterans, among thousands who are
currently
spearheading the invasion of hundreds of white-owned commercial farms
across
the country, came speeding in a truck into Chimanimani on Tuesday
morning,
according to witnesses.
Their first stop on what was to become a two-day violent rampage was
the
Charter Estate sawmill on the outskirts of the village, the main source
of
employment in the poverty-ravaged area.
"They arrived at about half-past-eight," said 21-year-old Simbrashe
Mwaemudza, a general worker at the mill. "Some of them were supporters
of
ZANU-PF (Zimbabwe's ruling party). They were armed with sticks and
knives."
He said workers were made to line up and all ZANU-PF supporters made
to
identify themselves.
"I'm an MDC supporter," Mwaemudza said, referring to the main
opposition
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), "so I didn't put up my hand."
He was struck across his face with a stick -- the wound is still open
--
and ordered to put up his hand to show support for the ruling party.
When he
again refused he was struck across the back.
Fifteen other MDC supporters, including kiln worker Paul Mzimba,
suffered a
similar fate. Some were so badly beaten they had to be treated at
hospital.
After ordering everyone off the premises, the war veterans and
ZANU-PF
militants made for the primary school in the Ngangu shantytown on the
edge
Chimanimani, where, according to witnesses who did not want to be
identified,
they herded the children into a school hall.
They then rounded up the teachers and meted out to them the same
punishment
accorded the timber workers. Several teachers were severly injured while
the
headmaster has disappeared, believed to be badly beaten. One child who
tried
to go to the toilet during the incident was walloped.
A nursing sister at the government hospital in nearby Biririwi said
she had
received several phone calls from people seeking out their injured
relatives.
"I'm not sure where they have gone," she said. "Normally they would have
come
here, but I think they have gone to some other areas because they fear
all
these troubles here."
On Wednesday, the group drove into town. White residents and
farmers,
meanwhile, hearing of the incidents at the mill and school, bolted their
houses, piled blankets, pillows and food into their cars and sped away.
Many went to the closest town -- Chipenge -- where they spent the
night in
a school, while others drove to the bigger town of Mutare, about 150
kilometres (94 miles) away.
With war veterans' leader Chenjerai Hunzvi due to hold a large rally
at
Chimanimani Saturday to campaign for next month's parliamentary
elections,
most whites are not daring to return home yet, according to the
Commercial
Farmers Union.
On Thursday, some black people were seen milling about the streets of
the
village but the only white faces to be seen were those of wooden
drum-maker
John Barlow and his family, who run a coffee shop.
"I think the whites who left just panicked," Barlow said. "They held
a
meeting and it was during that meeting that the panic began. After that
they
just left town."
He was determined to stay on at the picturesque forested settlement,
which
is used by backpackers as a stopover on their way to hike in the nearby
Chimanimani national park.
Other witnesses said the veterans had established a base on a farm
near the
village given them two weeks ago by the MDC candidate in the area, Roy
Bennet,
who said he would rather give up his land than renounce the MDC.
They were not to be seen in the remote village when AFP visited it
Thursday.
"Don't worry, they'll be back," said a trader at one of the few
black-run
stores which were open on Thursday.
"This place has now become Hunzvi's town."
HARARE, May 19 (AFP) - Members of Zimbabwe's ruling ZANU-PF
party attacked at least five students at a secondary school in the
north of the country earlier this week, the official ZIANA press
agency said Friday.
The students from Danduhwa were beaten up Tuesday when they
refused to give the militants a list of teachers who supported the
main opposition Movement for Democratic Change party (MDC), police
spokesman Musarashana Mabunda said, cited by the agency.
MDC supporters have been the target of several bloody attacks by
ZANU-PF supporters in a government-sponsored campaign of violence in
the run-up to elections in June.
Students at the Danduhwa school and locals said they were
terrified by the attack, ZIANA said.
The school's director Max Jimu told the agency that government
supporters had threatened to attack the teachers first, before
turning on the pupils.
Jimu said he could be forced to close down the school if the
insecurity persisted.
The incident was the first time secondary students have been
targetted by government supporters. ZANU-PF militants have so far
attacked farm workers, teachers, older students and white farmers.
At least 25 people have died in the violence since February.
MAKOKOBA, Zimbabwe, May 19 (AFP) - Fears that the violence
visited on Zimbabwe's southwestern province of Matabeleland in the
1980s might recur as part of President Robert Mugabe's quest to keep
power have risen following a recent campaign of nightime
intimidation.
Until the past few days, the village of Makokoba, peopled by
members of the Ndebele ethnic group, had been largely untouched by
the political turmoil gripping the rest of the country.
But the region has not been spared altogether.
Villagers tell of being woken in the middle of the night by the
sound of rapping on their doors.
"ZANU thugs are trying to terrorize us and to force us to attend
their political meetings," declares Mishkei Ncube, referring to
Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union party.
"They are Shonas coming from the north. It brings back too many
bad memories," he said.
Between 1983 and 1984, Mugabe, whose political force depended
largely on Shona support, sent the army's fifth brigade into the
Matabeleland to crush supporters of his erstwhile ally in the war of
independence against white-run Rhodesia, ZAPU party leader Joshua
Nkomo.
The ensuing massacres claimed the lives of at least 20,000
Ndebeles.
Now the region has become a stronghold for the opposition
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), and once again the political
tide appears to be pointing towards a new round of ethnic and party
political persecution prior to critical legislative elections on
June 24 and 25.
"We are undoubtedly going to become targets of violence before
the elections," says villager Yeukai Simba while tending his
garden.
Unlike Mugabe's followers, veterans from the region who fought
alongside Nkomo during the war of independence from 1972 to 1979 are
highly suspicious of the campaign to seize 1,500 white-owned farms
and of the political violence orchestrated by ZANU veterans.
According to locals, the only violent incidents in the region --
including the murder of May 18 of the white farmer Martin Olds --
have been carried out by groups brought in from Harare.
"The present campaign of violence bears all the marks of what
happened in the 1980s," declares David Coltart, an MDC leader and
co-author of the report "Breaking the Silence" on the atrocities in
Matabeleland.
"The world seems to discover what Mugabe is capable of to stay
in power," says Ted Sibanga, another resident of Makokoba.
"Unfortunately, we have known it for a long time."
From 1983, the fifth brigade carried out a systematic campaign
aimed at crushing Matabeleland's native population through the use
of torture, beatings, prison camps and mass executions.
"The methods used by the veterans at the moment and those used
by the fifth brigade are strikingly similar," says Coltart.
His report, published in 1997, highlighted the frequent physical
assaults by firth brigade troops, which have been repeated in recent
weeks in attacks by veterans and ruling party activists on rural
farm workers and teachers.
Likewise, another fifth brigade party trick has been given a
fresh outing in veteran-run camps.
Back in the Matabeleland campaign, villagers would be herded
together for a perverse festival, where "the songs were in an
unfamiliar language, the dance was forced, the slogans were
anti-ZAPU and the 'festivities' were accompanied by beatings and
killings," says the report.
"The past is catching up with us," murmurs Yeukai.