Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum: Report on violence against peaceful protestors in Harare After the blind beggar’s guitar was smashed by the war veterans, people spontaneously gave him several hundred dollars towards a new one. I have since received further cash for him from friends to whom I told the story. I went to see him a few days later. He was sitting in his usual spot, but was playing a harmonica in the absence of his guitar. I greeted him and told him that it was me who’d run with him on Saturday. He said that he had been very worried about what had happened to me and that he had prayed to God that I would be all right. He then bent down and pulled out a cassette tape of his music from his bag and said: “I want you to have this”. I was very touched. I then went around to friends and they showed me the volumes of email messages that they had received from people in Zimbabwe and all over the world, expressing their sadness and anger at what had happened, and offering support, including several offers of a guitar for the old blind man. I understand that a guitar from a Zimbabwean woman was given to the old man on Friday. During the week I went into town and, as usual, street kids would come up to me and ask if they could look after my car. I said that I was feeling angry and disappointed with street kids at the moment as a friend of mine said she had recognised several of them in the violent mob at the march. They told me that they had not been involved. I showed them my arms, by then black and blue with bruises. Their expressions changed to one of shock, and they were clearly disturbed by what had happened. They shook my hand and said that they were very sorry that this had happened. I could see that they really were genuinely shocked. The chiropractor I went to see this week to attend to my neck as a result of the attack, said that he had heard that many NCA people surrounded whites and women to prevent the attacking mob beating them. My growing picture of what happened is that the war veterans have brought shame on themselves through their violent actions and to our government that appears to support them. But the thing that sticks most in my mind is the multiple images of ordinary Zimbabweans caught up in an extraordinary situation, exchanging heartfelt concern for each other. And it is THIS that makes me proud to be Zimbabwean. No 13 – Account by Mrs S Jarvis At some time between 11.00 a.m. and 11.30 a.m. on Saturday 1 April 2000, I was walking along Union Avenue on the pavement near the POSB. Although I had come to town to join the advertised NCA march for peaceful elections, I had left them about three quarters of an hour earlier, and was simply a lone middle-aged woman carrying nothing and with nothing to associate me with the marchers. Just before this I had seen NCA and MDC marchers fleeing past me and being warned that “ZANU was coming”. I saw a crowd of men waving sticks coming towards me. One came up close to me and shouted to go away and then with absolutely no excuse or provocation or justification of any kind slammed a large lump of concrete into my face from about 18 inches. I managed to partly shield my face with my hand but was still knocked to the ground with the force of the blow. The same man then hit me with a stick. I saw other stones being thrown in my general direction, none of which struck me. Another man came over to me and also struck me with a stick. Their attention seemed to be distracted by something else: I was the crowd pursuing two men on the other side of the road and I was able to get away. I attach a copy of a medical report showing the injuries sustained. I would say that the concrete used was about the size of a soup plate about two and a half or three inches thick. It was deliberately thrown at me from close range with what seemed to be considerable force. However it did not cause any permanent injury. I would not be able to identify any individual assailants. The poster with which I had come to town with earlier but had shed before the attack on me bore the newspaper headline followed by my comment on it: “Mugabe threatens violence: All we want is a democratic choice = honest government”. - 23 -