Brother's dying cries echo in a Zimbabwean's mind

HARARE, ZIMBABWE — Still and silent in the darkness last week, opposition activist Sebastian Chipiyo hid in a smelly outhouse, listening, he said, to the agonized shrieks of his brother, Archiford, being beaten just yards away by a mob of ruling party thugs. His colleague, Question Dingo, hid in the hen coop. Others roosted silently in the trees, all listening, terrified.

"I could hear the sound of the beating. It sounded like they were using heavy objects. You could hear it: Bam! Bam!" said Chipiyo, 25. "It was very painful to hear my brother crying. I couldn't do anything because these guys were carrying guns. We heard him crying, 'You've killed me; you've broken my ribs.'

"We couldn't even shed tears. We could not move from our hiding places."

On Tuesday, less than two weeks before Zimbabwe's presidential runoff election, about 15 activists of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change were hiding at the home of Chipiyo's father, an MDC local councilor, in Chitungwiza, a suburb about 20 miles from Harare, after being driven from their own homes in previous days.

At midnight, about 300 ruling ZANU-PF party supporters attacked the house with rocks. The MDC men tossed stones back. But the mob returned with guns.

"The last thing my brother said to me was, 'The situation is really bad. There's nothing we can do because we are fighting people with weapons. I hope God will intervene,' " said Sebastian. He couldn't see his brother's face in the dark but heard the fear in his voice. A chill of fear tightened his own gut.

The mob, singing a liberation war song called "You Started the War," closed in on the house. Sebastian and others managed to scramble over the wall to hide next door, but three didn't make it, including his 29-year-old brother. As the mob beat the victims, they shouted, "Where are the others? We want your father's head," Chipiyo and Dingo said.

The pair saw their three colleagues and an unknown passerby being taken away to a makeshift militia camp where victims are interrogated and beaten. The location: the local kindergarten. The mob then looted and gas-bombed the house.

"The house was in flames. They started celebrating," Chipiyo said.

The body of one of the activists was found the next day, his genitals cut off. Archiford's body turned up two days later with a gunshot wound to the head, witnesses said. The body of a third activist had an ax wound in the skull.