Iron Bars and Scalding Water

Winfielder Musarrurwa, 21, a youth leader for the MDC, only survived because her tormentors left her for dead. "I pretended to be dead and they left me," she said. They had found her at 1 a.m. on Thursday, hiding in her sister's house, stripped off her clothing and beat her with sticks and iron bars on her buttocks and privates. She readily dropped her dress to show the evidence, which was horrifying—modesty surrendered in the sake of giving testimony. They also poured scalding water on her wounds and pounded her arms until they were black and blue. It hasn't dampened her spirit any. "I will never stop supporting the MDC and Morgan Tsvangirai, even if it costs me my life," she said.

Scalding water seems to be a favorite weapon; it was also used on Georgie Simango, 27, a party worker and a samosa street vendor, who was also burned by hot ashes from a fireplace. But we didn't get much more into the details; at that point the hospital's director came in and demanded to know who we were. One of the nurses had ratted—probably only one, because most seemed pretty happy to see us visit. We explained we were just interested parties, certainly not accredited journalists. "Look, I want the world to know what is happening here as much as anyone," the director said. "But I also want these people to still be getting treatment here next week." It was a reasonable position and a classic conundrum; we left after agreeing not to divulge the name of the facility.

How much worse this will get before African countries manage to pressure Mugabe into surrender, it's hard to say, though the initial indications are worrisome. It probably helps the case against him that the low turnout will make it even harder to try to peddle this as a legitimate victory, and at this point, as the second highest vote-getter in the first round of elections, Mugabe can hardly continue to claim to be the legitimate president of Zimbabwe. Dictator, is the title he deserves now, or, at best, self-proclaimed president.

Stopping by the business center of a major hotel to file this story, I was warned off when we saw one of the computer bays occupied by one of Mugabe's Men in Black—black suit, black shirt, natty yellow tie, an officer in the Central Intelligence Office. In this case my guide actually recognized him as a CIO man, he said, but since the CIO all wear pretty much the same uniform, that's only a formality (at night they switch to black leather jackets for the wet work). We eavesdropped on him from a nearby booth; he was multi-tasking, checking his Yahoo e-mail account (I'm tempted to post the address for all those good-intentioned hackers out there) and talking on a cellphone. "I told those guys at the State House to release 400 liters of fuel for the drivers and they didn't do it," he said. "What's their problem? We have an operation tonight."

After a spell of shouting, he got up and went outside. There he exchanged money and keys with the driver of a minibus parked in the lot, and gave him and several Zimbabweans inside the vehicle instructions. Interestingly, the bus had a sign on the side identifying it as "African Union Observers." Since they never go out at night, the election observers probably have no idea how their vehicles are being used in the dark.

There's no end to the dirty tricks the regime employed in stealing the election. Thanks to the sullen protest of Zimbabwe's voters, it seems likely Mugabe will end up like the burglar who finds he has gone to all that trouble to rumble an empty house.

© 2008