My ‘Bloody Wednesday’ Diary

erting traffic away from Nelson Mandela Avenue around Construction House, where the ZCTU demonstration was due to start at 12 midday.
On my arrival in the vicinity at 11.45 am there was a heavy Riot police presence. I sat for over an hour watching them. There were a number of MDC and ZCTU officials and activists waiting around Bakers Inn. The Riot Police were without doubt going to provoke a situation. They were stopping passersby and questioning them and in many cases grabbing their arms aggressively, and telling them to get out of the area.
The demo finally started around 1pm with about 12 people singing and dancing in the street. It was over in seconds. The demonstrators were ordered to sit down and then the Riot police went beserk. They beat the people so viciously and brutally it was a terrible and shocking spectacle to witness. I feared for their lives. All the Policemen raised their baton sticks way above their heads and then brought them down in full force against the peoples bodies.
I was seen to be taking photos by a CIO operative who pulled me aside to question me. Grace Kwinje distracted him and gave me the “disappear” look! I hid in a nearby Bank and when I thought the coast was clear, slipped out and went round the corner. The next minute there was a tsunami of bodies surging panic stricken past me. Before I could turn around I was hit by a baton stick on the back by one of three Riot cops telling me I was under arrest. I refused to hand over my camera or my cell phone.
As we were driving past Harvest House (MDC) the Land Rover screeched to a halt and five of the six Riot cops leapt out and just grabbed passersby and a few people who were standing watching us, and proceeded to beat them shouting “what are you doing on the streets?”. Having satisfied their lust for violence once again, they jumped back in and we were then handed over to the CIO just outside the Anglican Cathedral.
There were two suited Chinese gentlemen with cameras standing on the steps of the Cathedral, smiling -waiting for what? The demo was supposed to end outside Parliament. It did make me wonder if their suppression of dissent tactics in China, ending in the massacre of Tianamen Square, are being taught to the Mugabe regime? Their involvement in Operation Murambastvina was visible i.e. military uniformed Chinese men seen in the Army vehicles at the sites of destruction was ominous to say the least.
We were then taken to Harare Central Police station where we met up with the ZCTU leaders and members already arrested. The station car park was teeming with Police and riot members and we were heavily guarded! It was brought to our attention over the next few days that we had been referred to as “ZCTU terrorists bent on killing the President”. The mind boggles.
Having been officially booked into the holding cell-block we awaited the arrival of our lawyers. Access to our lawyers was denied, as was the opportunity to speak with our relatives when they brought us food and water.
The stench was stifling. We were not allowed to wear our shoes, which meant we were walking in raw sewage. With very little lighting it meant it was impossible to avoid stepping into this disgusting filth. We brought this to the attention of the duty Police Officers and were told “those are the rules”.
As we were taken up to the top of the building for our first roll call, our eyes were adjusting to the darkness on the first floor, when we heard a roar of excitement and singing and we then realized we were in jail with our WOZA sisters. It was a heart warming welcome to the world of detention! Arms came flying through the bars and there were hugs all round till the Officer with his “rova pipe” (piece of hose pipe used for beating) shouted to us to move on.
Due to the uninhabitable state of the cells we were all left with no option but to “sleep” on the concrete floor in the passage. There were about forty WOZA women so we all squashed up together for warmth and to keep out of the way of the sewage creeping along the passage.
Each toilet has a tap above it to flush the contents away, but there was no water.
he first morning I saw a civilian cleaner and asked him to show me where the water source was. Once I knew, I was able to get water to flush out the toilet in only one cell. Cleaning it was not a pleasant task but I felt if we were to be there for a few days we had to have some place for a “comfort break”! However it was soon back to where it was in the beginning so Grace took her turn as the “plumbing consultant”.
We even managed to get a bottle of Sanpic in with our food pack, as well as Doom Spray to kill the tsikitsi (bed bugs). One of our group captured about 50 of these bugs and placed them in a plastic packet to be kept as “Exhibit A”!
The duty officers were cussed constantly by the ZCTU inmates, for their lack of professionalism, their abusive manner, the police violence, the inhuman conditions in the cells etc. One of the younger ZCTU members got very vociferous at one of the roll calls and was threatened with a beating “ndichakurova”. He just yelled back, “you can beat me all you like, you are not Policemen, you are just thugs in uniform”.
On Thursday we were not formally charged and our fingerprints were not taken. We still had not seen our lawyers.
By now we had heard that the ZCTU leadership and an MDC senior official had been detained at the notorious Matapi Police Station at Mbare. That Station is a well- known torture center and has been condemned by the Supreme Court of Zimbabwe as “unfit for human habitation”. That night -we thought about 9 pm, the Matapi contingent were moved to join us at Central. It was a pitiful sight to see those 14 physically and mentally battered and brutalized figures appearing. Three could hardly walk or stand. The solidarity was tangible as we all shook hands or hugged our friends. They told us of their ordeal and how they had been told on arrival at Matapi by the Police (Army?) details “we are not trained to write dockets, we are trained to kill”. They were taken two at a time into a room and brutally beaten by five men with knobkerries and long baton sticks for up to 20 minutes.
It was clear that they were all in desperate need of medical attention, which had been denied them at Matapi Police Station.
The Duty Officer made arrangements for their removal to Parirenyatwa Hospital and the pitiful group shuffled out with some hope of relief in their hearts. Many hours later they all returned, bandaged, X-rayed, and obviously all still in great pain.
On Friday morning, the documentation and fingerprinting procedures started. The Police detail doing the fingerprinting was excellent at his job and got through all 20 of us very quickly. Time was of the essence as we had to get to Court before 3pm in order to apply for Bail. The option of remaining in the cesspool over the weekend
was a bleak one. However there were other Officers who were not so efficient and there was a definite push by the CIO to delay matters in order to keep us in custody. – To be continued next week.