In the subsequent campaign for the presidential runoff, war veterans and ZANU-PF militias invaded farms, beat or evicted white families and their black workers and looted houses. The ruling party set up hundreds of militia bases from which to attack opposition activists and supporters.
Campbell believed the militias might burn down his house. But if he was afraid, he certainly wouldn't show it. He packed up his silver and china and a beloved antique military chest and sent them away.
He and Angela stayed put.
"Where do you go?" he said in Harare, the capital, where he was recuperating. "The best thing is just to stay. I don't think we would ever have given up."
On June 28, the last Sunday of the month, the day Robert Mugabe had himself inaugurated to another term as president after a one-man presidential runoff, the couple went to church and a family lunch in Chegutu. It was eerily quiet in town.
When they returned home at midafternoon, the two-way radio inside crackled urgently. Bruce had news that ZANU-PF militias had badly beaten an old man on a neighboring farm. The radio sputtered and died before he could warn them that the gang had declared it was on its way to Mount Carmel.
Less than 10 minutes later, Angela heard a shrieking yelp from one of her pointers as it was clubbed. Dozens of men had driven into the yard. They were young, in their teens and early 20s, and carrying shotguns and rifles stolen from a nearby farm. They leapt from a pickup also taken from the farm. Others poured from the back of a white minibus -- about 30 in all.
"They even had spears and sticks," she says. "Spears. Can you believe it?"
The men swarmed around them. Campbell was knocked unconscious almost immediately, beaten on the head. A tall, thin gunman smashed Angela's arm, shattering the bone above her elbow. The two were trussed up tightly.
When the radio died, Bruce had frantically phoned Ben Freeth, the Campbells' son-in-law, who lives in the homestead next to Mount Carmel. Freeth raced to the Campbells' house, where he was captured and beaten on the head with a rifle butt, causing a 5-inch fracture in his skull.
Bruce, 10 minutes away, realized there was little point in going to the police. He knew they had been ordered to stay out of election violence. So he was on his own. He had a pistol, against a mob he knew was heavily armed.
He had one goal -- to save his parents. But how?
