Beatings alleged in Zimbabwe

Opposition supporters say they have been beaten by agents of the Zimbabwean military in recent weeks and that some activists have been abducted and taken to paramilitary bush camps for interrogation.

A leader of the Movement for Democratic Change said Sunday that 10 activists had been killed since the national elections March 29, and that scores had disappeared.

Witnesses interviewed over the last week by phone described dozens of camps coordinated by senior military officers and operated mainly by war veterans and ruling party youth. Others described MDC supporters’ homes being burned, children and the elderly beaten, and victims warned to stay away from hospitals because the facilities “belonged” to President Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party.

The allegations could not be independently verified, in part because foreign reporters are not being allowed into Zimbabwe. But numerous witnesses interviewed independently offered similar accounts in different villages.

On Saturday, Human Rights Watch reported that “torture camps” had been set up in rural areas. The U.S.-based rights group said it had interviewed 30 people who had suffered serious injuries after beatings at the camps.

According to the witnesses interviewed by The Times, entire communities have been forced to attend political meetings in rural areas that had switched to the opposition MDC in the recent voting. MDC activists were severely beaten by soldiers and ZANU-PF youth, the witnesses said. Villagers were also warned to not vote MDC in an expected runoff for the presidency in coming weeks.

MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai, who has fled Zimbabwe, asserts that he won the presidential race outright and says the recount ordered of 23 parliamentary seats is illegal and allows for electoral fraud. Mugabe, 84, has held power since 1980 and claims Britain is trying to recolonize Zimbabwe through the MDC.

With food desperately scarce in rural areas, many opposition activists are also being denied access to the staple maize, which is distributed through a state monopoly. An MDC activist in the Mutoko area said he was told the maize was now being handed out only through newly elected ruling party lawmakers. Other activists also reported widespread hunger in the areas being targeted.

Dozens of opposition activists are in hiding or, like Tsvangirai, have left Zimbabwe.

The hardest hit areas are Mashonaland East and Manicaland, where support for ZANU-PF slumped. The party lost control of parliament for the first time in 28 years. The recount could enable it to seize control again, if the results in at least nine seats are reversed.

Up to 20,000 people were killed in the early 1980s in a campaign by Mugabe to wipe out political opponents in southern Zimbabwe. From 2000 on, his government has evicted and terrorized white farmers. After 2005 elections, about 700,000 people in urban opposition strongholds were removed and their shacks razed, leaving them homeless.

One of the recent compulsory meetings took place Wednesday in Chibeta village, about 22 miles east of Mutoko, witnesses say. A military officer named Bramwell Katsvairo arrived with the Mutoko East lawmaker, Ordo Nyakudanga of ZANU-PF, two soldiers, several other military officers in civilian clothing and about a dozen ruling party youth.

Regis Tiringasi, 27, was one of about 30 opposition activists who fled into the bush. He and others took refuge on a hill.

“The next day we came down and we found a body. He was shot in the side of the chest,” Tiringasi said by phone.

The victim was an opposition activist, Tatenda Chibika. Another activist, John Martin Pawandiwa, is missing, Tiringasi said.

He said the villagers told him that they had to attend a compulsory political meeting called by the chief.

“They were saying people must surrender their [MDC] T-shirts and membership cards to the ruling party,” Tiringasi said. “Those who did not surrender the T-shirts would be dealt with. They would come and burn their houses after a week.”

One activist, Aaron Bvunzai, was severely beaten at the meeting, Tiringasi said. Bvunzai was taken away and has not been seen since. The MDC candidate for Mutoko East, Abel Samakande, who is in hiding, claimed there were more than a dozen bush detention camps in Mutoko district, saying he had seen one.

Another opposition organizer in Mutoko district, Mapango Matenguo, interviewed separately, said a group of more than 100 war veterans and ZANU-PF youth stoned his house and used catapults to hurl metal nuts, destroying it.

“That same night they came and captured me,” he said, and took him to the bush. “These are bases they set up two weeks ago to get hold of MDC supporters. They had all sorts of weapons there.”

He said he was interrogated and let go Monday night, possibly because one of the ZANU-PF ringleaders was a villager whom he had helped once.

Misheck Kagurabadza, the newly elected MDC lawmaker for Mutasa South, said last Monday that 103 families had been evicted from their homes on a farm. Their houses were burned and they were now camped in the open without blankets or food.

Gilbert Sadziwa, an MDC activist based 40 miles north of Mutare province, said a compulsory meeting was held in the area Wednesday.

“They said if we voted for Tsvangirai as we did in the first round there will be turmoil in the area. They said there will be beatings and even cutting off of heads.”

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robyn.dixon@latimes.com