Reign of terror now gripping Zimbabwe
Robert Mugabe denounces MDC claims as run-off election nears
Robert Mugabe: 'Damn lie'. Credit: Desmond Kwande, Getty Images
CHARITY MATYAKA was lying in bed recovering from an operation when the militia came for her husband Francis, a popular head teacher.
Unable to move, she had to watch as they dragged him from the cottage and into the darkness.
His dismembered body was discovered two weeks later -- another victim of the reign of terror unleashed by President Robert Mugabe before this week's planned election run-off.
At least 85 people are known to have died in the violence that followed the first, indecisive round of voting in March. Almost all of them fell to the machetes, guns and clubs of militiamen allied to the ruling Zanu PF party.
Like Mr Matyaka, the other victims were suspected of supporting the opposition Movement for Democratic Change [MDC] and its presidential candidate, Morgan Tsvangirai. "My husband's crime was that he showed sympathy to the MDC,'' said Mrs Matyaka, 34.
Her husband had been savagely mutilated. His genitals were cut off and his skin was badly burnt. He had also been shot in the back of the neck.
When his body was found by herdsmen, partially clothed and mauled by hyenas, it sent a shudder through the normally tranquil district of Mutoko, 80 miles east of the capital Harare.
On Friday, Mr Mugabe scornfully dismissed the reports of attacks by Zanu PF as "damn lies'' and shifted the blame for the violence onto the MDC.
"They have been saying their supporters are beaten up by our soldiers,'' he said at an election rally in the MDC heartland of Bulawayo, south-west Zimbabwe.
"They say this so that they can later say the elections were not free and fair. Which is a damn lie.'' Most of the violence has been concentrated in the north of the country.
In the Mashonaland provinces, where the MDC increased its vote by more than 30 per cent, the repression has been brutal.
Sokwanele, a non-government organisation, has compiled details of more than 1,300 political attacks.
One particularly brutal technique, known as falanga, involves beatings across the buttocks or soles of the feet which are so hard that victims are scarred for life and sometimes unable to sit or walk again. But even Mr Mugabe's old allies are being sickened at the scale of the violence, with the president of Angola begging the Zanu PF leader to "embrace a spirit of tolerance''.
But Mrs Matyaka remains determined to press for change. "I will continue to teach at this school and fend for our children,'' she said. "They must live in a new Zimbabwe that their father gave his blood for.''
© Telegraph
- A SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT in HARARE
