Posted on 03/09/2003 8:56:35 AM PST by Clive
Hundreds of Zimbabwe's notorious youth militia, nicknamed the "green bombers", are fleeing to South Africa because they say they too are being beaten and starved, and are tired of "killing for nothing".
This week The Sunday Independent interviewed 14 green bombers aged from 15 to 28, giving the first insight into the terror organisation.
One youth said he fled Zimbabwe after being forced to take part in the murder of his uncle, a supporter of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).
Another said he was involved in the murder of an MDC party chairperson and claimed that within hours of that death, Jonathan Moyo, the Zanu-PF minister of information, visited the area, followed by President Robert Mugabe. A large consignment of food was moved in while green bombers exhorted villagers to chant Zanu-PF slogans.
Yet another said he fled to South Africa after being instructed to murder his father, an MDC supporter.
Hundreds of youths have fled to South Africa, according to human rights organisations, churches and law offices.
The stories of the youths interviewed - who come from different areas of Zimbabwe and who did not previously know each other - provide chilling details of the green bombers, their training and methods.
They come from the hundreds of youth militia training camps which have sprung up in Zimbabwe, many at secondary schools where pupils are forced to take part in activities or risk death. Most of those interviewed fled in December and January, some swimming the Limpopo and risking crocodiles to get to South Africa. Their real names are being withheld to protect them and their families in Zimbabwe.
Camps that the boys were trained at include the infamous Border Gezi in the north of the country and Tsholotsho training centre (a former training centre for nurses and police officers). At Tsholotsho, the green bombers claim, there are 2 000 trainees. Camps are sometimes much smaller, however, with only 100 trainees.
The green bomber operatives have alleged that:
They were taught how to kill people in "ways that would be quick and silent and leave no evidence".
Before a killing mission they were given alcohol and dagga to smoke by their instructors and Zanu-PF political commissars, because then "you feel nothing for anyone".
At Border Gezi, they claim, they were taught how to kill. "Maybe two of us would approach you like we were lost, one would grab you on the front of the neck and others would push you down and hold you so that you don't have a chance to scream before you die."
At camps they would have rigorous programmes ofrunning from 5am to 8am, often after a night of toyi-toying and singing party slogans.
Instructors at Border Gezi allegedly gave instructions that led to the death of a man in his 30s near Bulawayo. The man was walking along the road and when asked what political party he belonged to, he said that he did not believe in politics. And so the militia killed him.
Instructors at a camp near Khami prison, Bulawayo, allegedly gave instructions for youth militia to kill Michael Sibanda, 41, secretary for the MDC Nkulumani branch.
They gave a group of 10 young men dagga and alcohol before they sent them on the mission.
In March last year, one 22-year-old green bomber claims, a woman instructor at Border Gezi and a Zanu- PF political commissar instructed 13 youth militia that the MDC chairperson of the Siphepa branch, a Mr Sibindi, was to be killed.
"She said it would need a strong person to kill him. We went to his house at 1am. His wife and seven children ran away. We beat him and broke his neck. It was so bad. They told us to burn him. We refused. We laid him next to the railway line.
"Later that morning we made a rally at Siphepa for Jonathan Moyo - everyone had to come, if we found someone in their house, we beat them. The Tsholotsho police tried to investigate but no one told them the truth."
A trainer at Tsholotsho allegedly told green bombers they must "beat white people because the MDC wants to give the country to the whites".
A 19-year-old former operative said: "We were not paid. They gave us pap only. We sold mealiemeal in the shops to those with Zanu-PF cards. If MDC people came we chased them away. We were very rough."
Some joined after being told they would get jobs. MN, 22, who was taken to Tsholotsho training camp, said he became tired of singing chimurenga songs all night so he went home to sleep. As punishment they "stripped me and made me roll over and over while they sprayed water on to me while I was beaten."
BN, 18, said he was forced to burn the houses of opposition supporters. "I was in form four, all I wanted was education. One day we were told to beat an old man coming from a shebeen. He was MDC. We used broomsticks and donkey pills [truncheons]. I think he died."
And Chirac thinks that inviting Mugabe to France will enable moral suasion to be used make Mugabe see the error of his ways.
Mugabe is forgetting rule one. Always remember to pay your thugs. If he had paid them they likely would be out there happily beating people up.
It is our good fortune that Evil is usually stupid and greedy as well.
Wow! Chirac really knows how to hurt a guy.
Congressman Billybob
Latest column, now up on UPI, and FR, "Truth, the First Casualty?"
The "King maker" is really Mandela, who is the only person standing in the way of Mbeki doing the same thing to South Africa as Mugabe is doing to Zimbabwe. When Mandela dies, look out. The difference may be that the white minority in South Africa will not likely allow Mbeki to destroy the country without a fight.
Just off the top of my head: Nigeria, South Africa, Malaysia, Thailand and France. North Korea kind of likes him too. Rome allowed him to attend a conference as required by international protocol but they did not extend him a warm welcome. And he was allowed to attend at the United Nations. pursuant to the same protocol. Then there is New York City where last year he was invited to City Hall as an honoured guest (not by the mayor, I hasten to say).
It seems that auto html does not work in replies the way I expected it to do.
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