Speaking on a programme about the crippling inflation rate and shortage of basic foodstuffs, fuel and transport services in the country, the MP for Kuwadzana said: “Mugabe has created a legacy of intimidation. Zimbabweans are so scared. Fear has become a new religion. Fear is the national religion. People are so scared, they’re even scared of themselves. They can’t even entertain the idea of criticizing the regime in their minds because they are so scared that maybe someone is reading their mind.”
Chamisa hit the headlines in March 2007 when he tried to board a plane from Harare to Brussels. He was beaten over the head in true military fashion and admitted to hospital with a broken skull. “There is no security. There is no protection, all of us are at risk,” he told reporters.
The BBC radio programme aired voices of ordinary Zimbabweans talking about the breakdown of the economy which left members of the public spending hours, sometimes days, in queues for cooking oil, meat, fish, vegetables.
Last week the inflation rate rocketed to between 20,000 to 30,000 percent. Citizens said that hundreds of MDC meetings have been banned by the police. Journalists are routinely intimidated and lawyers beaten up
The voice of Mugabe was heard on several chilling clips. The ma,n soon to mark his 83rd birthday with celebrations that will cost impoverished Zimbabweans billions of dollars, spoke about the need for “unity, unity, unity,”
As his sumptuous birthday celebrations approach, he quoted Karl Marx as saying – “He, who does not work, shall not eat.”