About 15 MDC activists were in hiding last week when Zanu-PF supporters turned up to unleash a nightmare, writes a special correspondent in Harare
STILL AND silent in the darkness last week, opposition activist Sebastian Chipiyo hid in a smelly outhouse, listening, he said, to the agonised shrieks of his brother Archiford being beaten just yards away by a mob of ruling party thugs. His colleague, Question Dingo, hid in the hen coop. Others roosted silently in the trees, all listening, terrified.
"I could hear the sound of the beating. It sounded like they were using heavy objects. You could hear it: Bam! Bam!" said Sebastian (25). "It was very painful to hear my brother crying. I couldn't do anything because these guys were carrying guns. We heard him crying, 'You've killed me; you've broken my ribs.'
"We couldn't even shed tears. We could not move from our hiding places."
Less than two weeks before Zimbabwe's planned presidential election run-off, last Tuesday about 15 activists of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change had been in hiding at the home of Chipiyo's father, an MDC local councillor, in Chitungwiza, a suburb about 20 miles from the capital Harare, after being driven from their own homes in previous days.
But at midnight, about 300 ruling Zanu-PF party supporters attacked the house with rocks. The MDC men tossed stones back. But the mob returned with guns.
"The last thing my brother said to me was, 'The situation is really bad. There's nothing we can do because we are fighting people with weapons. I hope God will intervene'," said Sebastian.
The mob, singing a liberation war song called You Started the War, closed in on the house. Sebastian and others managed to scramble over the wall to hide next door, but three didn't make it, including his 29-year-old brother.
As the attackers beat their victims, they shouted, "Where are the others? We want your father's head", according to Chipiyo and Dingo.
The pair saw their three colleagues and an unknown passerby being taken away to a makeshift militia camp where victims are interrogated and beaten. The location: the local kindergarten. The mob then looted and gas-bombed the house.
"The house was in flames. They started celebrating," said Chipiyo.
One of the activists' bodies was found dumped the next day, his genitals cut off. Archiford's body turned up two days later with a gunshot wound to the head, witnesses said. A third dead activist had an axe wound in his skull. The fourth was in critical condition in a hospital.
Last week saw the Mugabe regime unleash a new wave of attacks against the opposition in urban high-density areas near the capital, according to the MDC, which had more activists killed last week than any other since the first round of voting in which Mugabe finished behind MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai.
Zimbabwe Doctors for Human Rights says there have been at least 85 deaths and 3,000 people injured in political attacks since the March 27th presidential vote. As many as 200 activists remain missing, according to Zimbabwean human rights activists.
For many people here, life had become a terrifying round of beatings, harassment, political "re-education" meetings and funerals.
The presence of observers from the regional group, the Southern African Development Community, or SADC, did not stem the violence. SADC official Tanki Mothae confirmed several cases of harassment of election observers in Zimbabwe in the last week.
Speaking in Harare, Mothae said the harassment was coming from one side, but would not comment on which.
In Chitungwiza, mobs of Zanu-PF youth militias went from house to house on Saturday, rounding up residents for a tense and fearful "re-education" meeting by Zanu-PF officials and war veterans, threatening to beat those who refused to attend. The five ruling party speakers warned there would be war if voters rejected Zanu-PF, according to a witness.
"We are not bothered whether the UN or SADC declares this election free and fair. We will go ahead and have Robert Mugabe as our leader regardless," said one official at the meeting who gave his name as Comrade Padare.