LETTER FROM ZIMBABWE: LOCKED IN A CONTAINER
By Cathy Buckle

Before I start this week, a huge thank you for your help in making the MP's in your countries aware of the situation in Zimbabwe. In the last seven days I've had letters forwarded to me from some top politicians in the UK and Australia. With your help we are making the world sit up and see the horrors here, thank you.

Special thanks to Neil for sending copies of African Tears to the Prime Minister of his country - even if the book is just flipped through I am convinced that it will help raise awareness.

The situation throughout Zimbabwe this week has been very bad with a huge push being made in an attempt to get farmers and their workers to vacate their own homes. Last weekend I spent almost all of my time on the phone and email to farmers who had been barricaded into their homes.

There were times when I was just overcome with despair as grown men were in tears, their voices choked with emotion as mobs of youngsters smashed down security fences and camped out on their lawns. These are just ordinary people who have been subjected to 17 months of intimidation, who have absolutely no one to turn to for help.

They are not mega-rich millionaires with a handful of Mercedes in the garage, they are just ordinary people who have one farm and want to get on with growing food.

The story of one farmer I've been in touch with all week has really touched my heart. The man was in his farmhouse with his 78 year old mother last Saturday when a mob of youngsters arrived and told him he had 30 minutes to get out of his house - or they would kill him.

The man refused.

This is all he has got, this building, the most basic of all human rights, is all he has got now and it is his home.

He called the police.

While waiting for them to come, the mob broke down his fence and camped out all over his garden. They lit fires, sung, shouted, drummed and beat tins.

hen the police arrived they told the rabble that they could stay in the garden but they must retract the death threat.

The man and his elderly mother were held prisoners in their own home from Saturday lunch time until 5pm on Thursday evening.

The mob outside took turns to keep the noise going - all day and all night, banging on doors, rattling windows. The tactic seems to be to just wear the farmers down until they break and just walk out of their own homes.

Now, more than ever before, it is crystal clear that this is not about land it is simply a case of we want what you've got. It took the intervention of a politician to get this rent a mob out of the farmers garden on Thursday evening.

There were three of these attempted home take overs this week that I have been told about. And behind the scenes, the people who live and work on these farms are being subjected to even worse horrors.

In one siege situation in Marondera, rent a mob thugs rampaged through the workers housing complex, destroying property, beating people and then burning what was left. In a heartbreaking account a 52 year old woman working on the farm said: "I was told not to remove anything from the house. So I just watched helplessly as the war veterans burnt down my three huts, including everything that was inside."

Farmers are far from alone in this insanity. By-elections are being held this weekend in Bindura and the outrages have escalated.

Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai's convoy of vehicles was attacked by youths as it approached Bindura for a political rally this week. A number of shots were fired, one vehicle was burnt and the newspaper pictures were of men dripping blood after having been assaulted by stone throwing thugs. The Bindura police refused to provide an escort for Mr Tsvangirai even after the attack and this too shows that hanging on to political power is the only motivation behind 17 months of terror.

As Zimbabwe staggers closer to the Presidential elections we can only expect more of this and more of the horrors that go on under cover of darkness. A human rights organisation in Zimbabwe this week released parts of the evidence being heard in our courts of last year's atrocities committed against anyone daring to oppose our government.

It makes for horrific reading so stop here if you've got a weak stomach.

This excerpt comes from testimony given in court by Mr Philip Marufu in Mount Darwin and I relate it now only to reiterate this very tired point I keep trying to make : This is not about land or race it is filthy, stinking politics.

"Marufu was abducted by Zanu Pf supporters before the elections. He was kept in a container, which is a long iron box without windows that ships use to carry cargo. He was kept in the container all day, which was locked from the outside. It had no toilet. His 12 year old son was abducted by the same perpetrators a week later and was locked in the same container with his father... He witnessed his father being beaten ... verbally abused, threatened, kicked and hit with hard objects. The boy also received verbal abuse and threates from the perpetrators. He said the perpetrators bought their girlfriends to the container and had sexual intercourse with them while he and his father tried to sleep..."

I cannot relate any more now. It makes me feel ill to know that this has been going on for 17 months and that there can hardly be a single Zimbabwean now who has not been directly affected in this evil madness - a madness carried out by the very men we voted into power.

All any of us can do, inside or outside of Zimbabwe, is to speak out, expose this and make sure that no one believes that this a race or a land war.

As always I weep for farmers still desperately trying to hold their heads up, for farm workers who are losing the very shirts on their backs, for ordinary civil servants being beaten, raped and tortured and oh God, for the little children like 12 year old Philip Marufu who has seen more horrors in his childhood than most people see in their entire lives.

If you are as horrified as I am, if you too have a sense of right and wrong, then please help to expose this.

Cathy Buckle is the author of African Tears, available from the following worldwide distributors: South Africa [email protected] USA [email protected] UK and Europe [email protected] Australia [email protected] New Zealand [email protected],