• • • • • • These medical findings, duly recorded by doctors, are entirely in keeping with victims’ claims to have been assaulted with weapons, with fists, with feet. Five people reported being deliberately burnt, with burning plastic or grass 33 reported having their heads submerged in water to the point of temporary suffocation. 18 reported being handcuffed or tied up while being beaten or tortured 47 – more than 10% reported being abducted 79 out of 681 – 12% - reported having their properties burnt or destroyed Many of those affected by the violence will be crippled or deformed for life. Buttocks have been beaten away almost entirely, arms and legs have suffered multiple fractures, eyes have been lost. Beatings have often continued for hours on end, and will leave back, leg and head aches that will plague victims for the rest of their lives. People have been impoverished overnight, losing everything to arsonists at a time when the possibility of replacing destroyed building materials and belongings is impossible. One man who lost his entire homestead, showed us his seventeen burnt blankets – one blanket costs 2 billion in Zimbabwe today, when those in formal employment still earn around 2 billion a month. This man will never in the rest of his lifetime replace what he has lost. 8. Emotional trauma Several health professionals in Harare, as well as others working with victims, have commented on the emotional devastation of victims as being worse than in previous years. It is not insignificant that the worst violence has been in the traditional ZANU PF strongholds, in districts where, until possibly a year ago, people predominantly supported ZANU PF. These are districts that have, for nearly three decades, experienced mainly the positive side of ZANU PF. These areas have been the first to receive food aid, free ploughs and good rural development. These are also the areas, particularly in Mashonaland Central, where many of the nation’s best commercial farms have been redistributed. However, even being in ZANU PF areas has not protected people from the harsh economic reality of the last few years, which is why voters here had begun to turn towards the opposition. People here have had no experience of the cruelty of ZANU PF since the 1970s violence of the war, and are consequently devastated by the terrible events of the last month. This is not to deny that any human being would fail to be devastated by the brutality of April events, but psychological preparedness is a recognised factor in helping victims to deal with torture – in March, people in rural Mashonaland could not have begun to imagine that events would unfold as they have. It has been a thunderbolt from the blue. Therefore it is the authors’ belief that many of those who have been so shockingly displaced in the last two months will not return to their home areas and vote in the forthcoming run off, even if violence were to subside now. It is hard to imagine that many who witnessed the massacre described here following will have the courage to turn up and vote once more for MDC in the same Chaona polling station; the posting of 80 MDC votes here resulted in the sadistic, public slaughter of at least six people, in front of their wives, children and neighbours. This massacre is in the true mould of the Gukurahundi massacres of the 1980s, a horror which should never have occurred in Zimbabwe again. 80 80 In terms of international convention, five or more murdered in the same general area on the same day officially classifies as a massacre. So far the authors have the names of six dead from this incident, with unconfirmed rumours of another five. 46