Torture centres operating, say human rights NGOs

Opponents of the Zimbabwean government are being abducted to "torture centres" across the country that serve as bases for ruling party militia, Zimbabwean human rights groups allege.

"Violence on an organised basis has continued without decline throughout the country," the latest Zimbabwe Human Rights Forum report on political violence said. "In most cases victims are abducted to bases where they are tortured and then released. These bases are springboards for militia operating in the area and also serve as torture centres."

The report, released on Tuesday, said 26 people - 15 named as opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) supporters - were killed in political violence between 1 January and 16 February. It identified 24 "militia bases" across the country allegedly run by war veterans or ruling ZANU-PF party members where torture has taken place.

The Zimbabwe Human Rights Forum, an umbrella body of nine human rights NGOs said: "It is of particular concern to the Forum that the use of sexual torture ... has resurfaced. This has included forced rape by men, witnessed by both the perpetrators and others."

Zimbabwe's Deputy High Commissioner to South Africa, Danson Mudekunye, denied the allegations.

"Foreign ministers of SADC [Southern African Development Community] were recently in Zimbabwe and they give a different picture to what this report is giving," he told IRIN. "They say there is a decrease in politically motivated violence. Most of these foreign ministers have missions in Zimbabwe. How could they get it so wrong?"

According to the report: "Victim statements have increasingly indicated that the youth militia involved in organised violence [have] received formal training in it. Internationally recognised torture techniques are being implemented as in the case of a ZANU-PF base at Mahusekwa Growth Point [in Marondera, 50 km southeast of Harare]."

A member of the human rights group told IRIN that the report was compiled based on newspaper accounts, feedback from monitors in the field, and testimonies from victims. She said that a catch-all description of the assailants as "youth militia" was used, because it was difficult to clearly identify whether the culprits belonged to the government's national youth service, ZANU-PF, or the war veterans.

"People being tortured are people identified in the community as MDC supporters," she added. "They are taken from their homes and tortured. Some escape, some are taken to police stations where they go through an interrogation process and then they are released."

Forum reports are available at:
http://www.hrforumzim.com