Zimbabwe: Opposition Leader Tortured, Says Party

SW Radio Africa (London)

28 February 2011

Job Sikhala, the leader of the MDC-99, has been severely beaten and tortured in police custody as part of a wider plan to prevent him and others from participating in a planned anti-government march on Tuesday, a party spokesman has said.

Following the revolt against dictators in Tunisia, Egyt and Libya, Zimbabweans in and outside the country have been using social networks to call for a protest march against Robert Mugabe. The ‘Zimbabwe Million Citizen March’ was launched two week ago, and calls for a mass protest under the theme ‘Power in numbers to remove dictatorship’.

On Monday, MDC-99 spokesman Aaron Muzungu explained that Sikhala was picked up by members of the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) on Friday, who claimed they wanted him to give a statement on minor issues. However, on Sunday he was told that he was being charged with kidnapping someone in Mutare, which was a surprise to him as he had not travelled out of Harare during the period the kidnap was meant to have taken place.

Muzungu explained what had happened to Sikhala over the weekend; “On Saturday night he was tortured using electrical cables and beaten with an iron bar, which led to dislocation of his pelvis. Police are refusing for him to go to hospital; they are saying they are waiting for a command from someone from ‘up-there. Right now he can’t walk. He has been brutally assaulted. It’s a pity that they are denying him the right to get medication.”

It’s understood that the police have now signed a warrant for Sikhala to be held for a further 48 hours, meaning he would only be released after the planned million-man march.

Muzungu claims they have been reliably informed that Sikhala’s arrest and mistreatment is part of Mugabe’s plans to clampdown on activists so as to prevent the march on Tuesday.

“Some of the people in Mugabe’s intelligence tell us; ‘Guys, this is a Mugabe’s way of trying to destabilise so that your march will not succeed and (he is) trying to get rid of all these vocal people,” Muzungu said.

He denied that Sikhala had organised the million-man march, but said that people in Zimbabwe are so fed up with Robert Mugabe that they could demonstrate.

“Throughout the country people are ready to participate, but they are being scared (off) by the police. If you move in the locations today, you can actually see that they have deployed soldiers throughout the locations so as to instill fear to the masses who are ready to demonstrate tomorrow,” he said.

On Monday there was a heavy police and army presence in various parts of Harare, an indication that the government is ready to arrest anyone who might try to protest.

Last week the coordinator of the International Socialist Organisation, and former MDC MP Munyaradzi Gwisai, plus 44 other activists, were arrested and charged with treason for holding discussing the civil strife and protests in north Africa. They could face the death penalty. Like Sikhala, a number of them were tortured.

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