daveb says: I should have published this a while ago, but I didn’t have the balls. It’s the an story of an exceptional young Zimbabwean man whom I was fortunate to befriend whilst he was exiled in Zambia. He organises and promotes street soccer games for the homeless people of Zimbabwe, displaced by their own government. He himself is now homeless. He asked me for nothing, but I promised him that I would share his story. It’s a copy of an email sent to the charity for which he is establishing a Zimbabwean arm. I have not edited the text, except for withholding names for fear of further ramifications towards him and his family. I hope this doesn’t spoil your Monday morning coffee.

the situation in zimbabwe is continuing to deteriorate as people are being brutalised daily by the system. the following is an account of the occurance that happened on the 16th of june which traumatised me and my whole family including my working collegues were affected by the brutality. i hope the pictures will load tommorrow as they could not load today i think the server is slow

i recieved a phone call telling me that my father had been picked up by ZANU PF militia and youth and was being beaten in our residential community. this is in Hatcliff extension high density suburb. he was picked up around 1pm whilist he was distributinhg school uniforms for ophans and vulnerable children.

the news of his kidnapping did not suprise me in a country where people were being “picked up” by Zanu PF militia had gradually become a normal phenomenon if one is of a different political dispensation. what really shook me most was ythe thoiught that my father was facing death within the next few hours. My instincts told me to rush to the police and on the way i recieved numerous calls from friends telling me the fate my father faced. i arrived at the Hatcliffe police post and luckily i knew the officer in charge at the ,moment. i chronicled to him the henoius story and rather suprisingly he replied that he could not help because it was a political case. the source of my suprise did not lie in his negative response but rather in the fact that we still as a people managed to have faith in the poolice sytem which has been so clearly compromised by their political bias towards Zanu pf.

i pressed the officer and after 30 minutes he picked his mobile phone and dilled Borrowdale police station, the main statoion for harare north which comprises borrowdale and hatcliffe, some seven kilometres away. Borrowdale police responded by saying that they did not have enough manpower to come and sort out the situation of my father’s predicament.

a sense of nausea gripped my inner self with such intensity that my body froze. my mind was racing how can these people say they had no manpower when Mugabe was graduating new police recruits by their thousands every month such that Harare’s main CBD was infested by these new navy blue uniformed recruits such that every street corner had at least four of them weilding heavy baton sticks and clad in combat riot gear ready to pounce on the slightest groupoing of a crowd.

The officer assured me that the police would be diployed to disband the holiigans who beating and tourturing my father. i left the Hatclife police post at around 2 pm running with such pace, adrenaline having loosened my stiff boby, that i convered a distance of about a kilometre in a mad man’s record of around five minutes.

I arrived in Hatcliffe exension were the Zanu Pf tourture base or more appropriately their killing base is situated. i can to about 200 metres from the basewere my father was being butchered. i saw more than 200 men and women in a cicle with my father in the middle. i again experienced the same sensation of stiffness inmensed in great fear, i knew that if i approached and tried to be my father’s advocate i was going to be thoroughly beaten also. a sense of selkf presevation embalmed me but was dashed by a strong sense of helplessness and guilt as i could not surely save my father.

tears blurred my vision. i really wished that if i had a gun i would shoot al of them. for all the uys who were participating in the beating i had hrown up with them. i am talking of youth whom we had played together in our childhood years. suddenly at this juncture they had turned my enemies. Ah! my sense of belonging to the community was suddenly shuttered. a deep pain ruptured through my chest and i trembled furiously.

My father was not crying like a sheep. just imagine my father a man of 66 years of age being stoned, kicked and bludgeoned with a wooden block. his hands were handcuffed behind his back with his legs tighted to a tree. some men and women were pouring water over his bpody and ashes all over his face and sand was being packed into his ears. wooded sticks were being used by some whilist all of them were chanting revolutionary songs.

the police finally arrived and it is at that present moment that i gained my confidence and went towards them to relieve my father. now he is in the intensive care unit at an undisclosed location for his safety. all of this has resulted in a situation were by i was now being trailed by the perpetrators of this henious violence who now wanted to attack me the same style they did to my father. this resulted in them coming to my home at night singing and chanting war songs an indication that we were already on the hit list (DEATH LIST). this they did by petrol bombing our house and beating up my two brothers and sister who were sleeping at home at the time demanding them to state of my whereabouts.for they said that i was the one who was leading the guys who were discrediting the gorvernment by advocating homelessness issues and was taking young people to European countries as you are aware homeless issues in Zi,mbabwe have a strong political conotations since the operation murambatsvina of 2005 which resulted in the then UN Secretary general Kofi Annan sending a team of inquiry led by Anna Kajumulo Tibaijuka who condemed the gorvenment’s action of destroying people’s homes in the name of cleaning up which left 700.000 people homeless and more affected by the ripple effects. Hatciffe extension was the worst hard hit area by this operation. thus said the Zanu Pf guys began targeting all my siblings. In particular my workmates (name withheld) and (name withheld) were also added to the hit list as they were said to be part of the street soccer project.

now as i speak i have managed to move my whole family from hatcliffe with the same for (name withheld) and (name withheld) at a great expense as this in itself is clearly being displaced.my family is now stayin at another surburb were they cramed in with a sympathetic relative but as for me and (name withheld) and (name withheld) we are still being trailed thus we now do not have a place of permanent fixed aboard as we fear staying in one place for two or more days may compromise our already fragile security situation so are just moving from one sympathetic friend to another and the first guy who hosted us was beaten as ois now forced to attend their all night vigils as a sign of allegiance to Zanu Pf. i am also saddled by the expensive hospital bills to take care of my father as he is in intensive care.

traumatised

(name withheld)