Zimbabwe

A Mother Killed for Supporting Change

May 12, 2008 will remain etched in the memory of young Memory Nikisi, aged 14. This is the day when her late mother, Tambudzai, passed out her last breath after being assaulted by suspected Zanu PF youths at the family homestead in Nyika Growth Point of Zimbabwe's Masvingo province. Her crime was simple: being an Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) treasurer in the local ward. Memory says the trouble began during the campaign period for the harmonized elections, when her mother was waylaid on her way home from a rally by a group of youths and war veterans. She narrated her ordeal to me as follows.

One morning before the elections, my mother left the homestead to attend a rally to drum up support for their party’s candidate. We did not suspect anything would happen because it was now a routine exercise that she would attend the rallies and come back home safely. We thought all was just as usual as always.

It was only when it started getting late that we started getting worried because she used to return from the rallies before the sun set. On this day, she broke the tradition. We started searching for her at some compounds near to ours, but we could not locate her. Seeing that nothing was coming out of the search process, we set out for the growth point, accompanied by our uncle. My two young sisters, my brother and I make up the family since our father passed away in 1997.

When we got there, we met a few people who were drinking beer at beer outlets scattered all over the growth point. Since we were all under 18, we were not allowed into the drinking places and had to rely on asking people who went into the halls to check for us. They all came back with the same message: they could not find our mother.

Fear started gripping us and my young sisters and brother started weeping. We headed back home and we found her outside the door, naked and weeping profusely.

She told us that she had been stripped naked a few hours ago and paraded around the ward naked, all because she was an MDC member and official. She said that some of the youths touched her private parts, with some forcing sticks into her private parts.

We discovered there were bruises all over her private parts. We went into the bedroom and dressed her up before we made the long route to the police station to make a report. Little did we know that we were embarking on a trip that would leave us with more pain and emotional stress that we had already endured. Throughout the journey, she was weeping and asking why she had to be treated that way.

On arrival at the police station, we found these two police officers who looked drunk and unable to carry out their duties. They were speaking at the top of their voices and at times violent. They told us that they could not attend to the case because they did not have the vehicles to take us to the scene of the crime or track down the suspects. All in all, they said they could not attend to us and we were to hold onto the case until they got the fuel.

Seeing that no assistance was coming through, we tracked back home with fear still reaping our hearts. The situation slowed down for the few weeks that followed up until the elections were held. There were signs that there was danger lurking.

After the elections, when it was evident that Zanu PF had lost, we started hearing the reports of people being tortured and assaulted by a group of youths and war veterans. These reports were heard from a distance and the youths kept on coming closer to our homestead. They eventually descended on our mother on the 11th of May, at around 0300 hours.

We could hear them singing from a distance, chanting slogans, "VaMugabe chete, chete" (Mugabe only) and "one Mugabe, one nation" and we knew that disaster was upon us. They came to our house, headed straight for the bedroom where we were sleeping and kicked the door open. They went straight for our mother and dragged her outside the room.

All at once, they chanted: “Mutengesi, Mutengesi" (sell-out, sell-out) before they started pouncing on her. They used open hands, fists, sjamboks and whips.

She fell unconscious but they did not stop. It was only after one Murehwa instructed that they move to another “sell-out” that the beating stopped and they left the homestead chanting their slogans. We then went out and found mum lying in a pool of blood oozing through the nose, the mouth and the ears. She was bruised all over and her face was out of shape.

Since it was in the morning, we arranged that she should be taken to hospital where we were told the health institution had only pain killers and no other medication. The nurses washed her in hot water and gave her the painkillers. She coughed heavily and at times, she would spill blood. We were there on her bedside for two days and she was subsequently discharged, but the situation did not change.

On the night of May 12, 2008, she got worse. It was painful to see her breathing with so much difficulty - a condition that only lasted three hours before she passed away. I could not imagine the pain, being the oldest child and person at home, of being tasked with the duty of folding her. I had never come across such an experience but I felt compelled to do it since she was my mother.

She was eventually laid to rest on the 13th of May. We pray to God that He be with us and guide us through the journey of life, and that he unleashes His full wrath on the people responsible for my mother’s death.

***** A Final Note: Memory had to be calmed down by counselors at a counseling home in the capital. Her other family members have been kept away in other counseling homes as they cannot be accommodated at the same place as Memory, given their ages.

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