Grim tales from Zimbabwe

From The Los Angeles Times, 21 December: Grim tales from Zimbabwe

continued from yesterday...

On the road from Harare to Bulawayo, there's a hill named Heroes' Acre where famous veterans from Mugabe's triumphant uprising against Ian Smith's white minority regime in the 1970s are buried. Driving by, I feel a twinge of curiosity to see the soaring North Korean- designed obelisk within, but entry requires a special government permit. Locals shrug at my interest and say the place usually is deserted. But occasionally there are jealous fights in the ruling party over who deserves to be buried there. The many roadblocks on the way are mostly a means for underpaid police to extract bribes. Lately most can't even find cars or fuel to man the barriers. But roadblocks do get more serious if the government has a big campaign on, like Operation Murambatsvina (Clean Out the Filth) two years ago, when the military invaded townships and razed nearly every shack.

The Mugabe government said that it cut crime and made everything clean and tidy. But it targeted areas that had voted for the opposition. In the townships then, the air was full of the dust of demolitions. The route from Harare to Bulawayo looked like a road out of a war zone, with desperate people pushing carts piled with belongings. One evening during the operation, I was stopped at a roadblock as I was leaving one of the affected areas. I'd carelessly slipped notes of interviews into the pages of a guidebook, in between brochures and maps. The police ordered us out of the car and began to search the vehicle. They carefully searched the pockets, the trunk, my rucksack. They lifted up the seats. One officer picked up the book with my notes and began flipping through it. I had to look away. For a moment I felt a tiny whisper of the fear that Zimbabweans live with, like a fine invisible web that sticks to everyone. But when I glanced back, he had placed the book back in the car.

... In a nearby village, two policemen ask for a ride. My activist friend agrees with obvious reluctance. On the road he berates them for arresting and beating people for no reason, brushing aside their ineffectual protestations of innocence. The activist asked not to be identified, fearing repercussions that might make it difficult for him to work. Like everyone, it seems he has something to fear. The elite fear losing their privileges and wealth, or being arrested as traitors should they fall out of favor. Dealers and retailers fear jail for black market profiteering, or for violations of strict foreign exchange laws and price controls. Opposition and human rights activists fear being arrested, beaten, tortured or "disappeared." People believe the secret police are everywhere, eavesdropping on every phone call, inspecting every e-mail. As vast as Mugabe's security apparatus is, the fear of it is even larger. People walk on a knife-edge. Even giving birth is something to fear.