Mugabe militiamen speak out

Zimbabwean Archbishop Pius Ncube of Matabeleland (Bulawayo) listens to a former member of Zimbabwe's youth militia tell how he and a group of other militiamen killed a member of the MDC in Matabeleland, during a press conference on Friday in Johannesburg. PHOTO: AFP

Young Zimbabweans who have fled recently to South Africa on Friday recounted, shamefaced, the savage crimes they committed as members of pro-government youth militias.

Speaking the presence of Zimbabwean and South African bishops who denounced the atrocities committed by the National Youth Service, they talked in low voices, their gaze fixed on the floor, of how they killed, burned and raped.

Invariably, after a few moments, the stream of words faltered as they broke out in sobs.

The bishops, releasing the results of their probe into the Zimbabwean program to journalists in Johannesburg, pointed out that the 30,000 to 50,000 youngsters in the service -- some as young as 11 -- are themselves maltreated.

Debbie, 22, held her one-year-old daughter Nothula ("Peace" in Sindebele) on her lap.

"I was raped by so many different men, I don't know whose baby it is," she said.

The young woman said that at the training camp at Ntabanzinduna, near the western city of Bulawayo, "we shared a room with the boys and at night they would rape us".

"I have been for a blood test, and the doctor said I am HIV-positive," she said.

At the camp, the recruits were sent on 20km predawn runs every day.

"If you failed of fainted you were beaten up thoroughly," Debbie said.

"After that we had to do press-ups -- sometimes up to 200 -- then they made us sing revolutionary songs, party slogans" celebrating the ruling ZANU-PF of President Robert Mugabe.

Debbie she was forced to become a recruit by young militiamen, who accosted her in the street and threatiened to burn down her uncle's house, where she was living, if she refused.

Beside her, Thabo, 21, confirmed the brutality of the training program -- where he learned how to make petrol-bombs -- and the rapes.

In the camp where he spent 10 months, he said, he had raped several of the girls who slept in the same dormitory.

In January last year, Thabo took part in what he called a distressing "operation," joining some 50 militiamen who invaded the property of a member of the political opposition.

Halaza Sibindi, a member of the Movement for Democratic Change, was home that night in Tsholotsho, north of Bulawayo, when Thabo and 25 others entered his house.

"We twisted his head, we beat him with sjamboks [long leather whips], iron bars, crowbars, in front of his wife and seven children -- they were crying. I had a sjambok. Then we left his body by the river."

"They used to give us beer and ganja [marijuana] before we went out to destroy, then when we got back to the camp we would have a party," Thabo recalled.

Nineteen-year-old Wesley said: "There are many things we did ... some of them, if I think of them, make me feel like crying."

"In the streets we were harassing people, checking if they have ZANU-PF cards."

He told of attacks carried out by groups of 50 or 100 young militiamen, involving rape, arson and murder.

"Sometimes we burnt the properties, sometimes we killed," he said.

But he, like Thabo, put forward a coldly prosaic reason for quitting.

When he joined up, he said, he was promised money, comfort, land for his family ... but was left empty-handed.

Debbie, Thabo and Wesley, who are seeking political asylum in South Africa, are among hundreds who have fled the youth service.

Isolated penniless in Johannesburg, a city renowned for its xenophobia toward African immigrants, they dream about returning one day to their homeland.

"If my country is going to be okay, I'm going back," said Thabo.

The bishops, in a report that slammed Mugabe's party for the brutal crimes of its youth service, predicted that the return for the youth would be difficult.

"Our youths have been turned into vandals and have become a lost generation in the process," they said.