Abducted and tortured while Mugabe was being inaugurated
Mike, Angela and Ben were taken by a “war vet” named Gilbert Moyo and approximately twenty thugs to Pixton Mine (Pixton Mine is currently being used as a youth militia torture camp). Implicated in the attack is a Zanu PF party member named ‘Mazambani’ and an army General.
Cold water was thrown over them before all were beaten.
Mike Campbell, who is 74 years old, was beaten with rifle butts. Mike has serious concussion and a broken collar bone and fingers.
Mike’s wife Angela (70) was thrown to the ground by the abductors resulting in a double fracture of her arm/shoulder, requiring surgery. One of the militia took burning twigs from the fire and put them on her lips.
Ben Freeth, their son in law, was also beaten with rifle butts. He has a badly swollen and totally closed eye. His feet were severely beaten. Beating people on the soles of their feet is a form of torture that is widespread in Zimbabwe and is known as “falanga”. Falanga can leave a victim permanently unable to walk normally.
The motivation for the attack is tied to the farmers’ engagement in a SADC tribunal challanging the Zanu PF regime’s efforst to compulsoraly take their farms.
Mike and Ben are the architects and at the forefront of the SADC Tribunal litigation. Fourteen farmers in the Kadoma/Chegutu farming community spearheaded the joinder applications with the Campbell Mount Carmel case in SADC.
They were viciously beaten and tortured until they agreed, under extreme duress, to sign a formal withdrawal of the Campbell Case from the SADC Tribunal.
The case is due to be heard in Windhoek from 16th July onwards.
We are so grateful the Campbells are alive and have been found. It must be kept in mind that thousands of Zimbabweans have been abducted and their whereabouts and their safety is still unknown.
June 30th, 2008 18:54
Define a real man. Let’s see. Yep. It seems a real man in Africa is one who beats up and kills defensless people. Old people, children and women aren’t spared. Yea. That seems to be Africa’s definition of a real man. [...]
The last of the only people that has a slightest chance of helping to save poor Zim, are now being killed or driven out. Did someone actually do a rabbies test on Bob Mugabe? Because he’s displaying all the signs of a rabid animal. Mad animals are usually put out of their misery by being shot.
I really do feel sorry for the Zimbabwean people I am also really, really sorry and regretful of what had happened to so many of your people that fled to South Africa (my location). That was most unexpected. Most of us had the intention of helping you when you got here, but sadly your own brothers turned on you. I’m ashamed of what our people had done to you, since the ones that did it aren’t prepared to appologize, I may as well do so.
June 30th, 2008 20:38
How please I am that these farmers are found and worry about the others out there who have little or no net work to help them….I heard today on Sky News that Tescos plans on stopping importing from Zimbabwe….This may hit the farmers still left but it is imperative that this happens…along with the timeonline reporting again about Barclays Bank, the government has approached BP and Anglo America who are about to invest heavily in Zimbabwe…their excuse they provide jobs….
June 30th, 2008 20:44
This is appalling. Perhaps these pictures should be sent to the SADC tribunal, along with yet another petition for them to take a stronger stand against Mugabe and his terrorist regime.
June 30th, 2008 21:41
Frankly, as awful as this is, I’m astonished and delighted that they are alive. While they live, there’s still an opportunity to fight back against this malevolent evil.
June 30th, 2008 22:36
The violence has got to stop, the people of Zimbabwe need protected in the first instance. How can there ever be negotiations while people continue to be beaten and killed and abducted and arrested. Mugabe has never taken negotiations seriously before, he just uses them to prolong the suffering of the people and extend his time in power. He is never going to relinquish power voluntarily, he needs to be given pressure that leaves him no alternative, if not by Africans, then by somebody else.
June 30th, 2008 22:37
The situation in Zim IS getting totally out of control and by the looks of it, the African Union won’t do a thing about it. In fact, stories we are reading, claims that he was “welcomed with open arms” in Egypt at the African Union meeting by fellow African Leaders.
The fact that President Mbeki refuse to get involved and are persistent in saying that “there is no crisis in Zimbabwe” does not only let the people of Zim down, but ALSO the people in his own country!!!!
It’s time the world takes action and send military help into Zim, to save the helpless victims from the Mogabe regime. He IS the worst dictator the world has ever seen.
Yes, the voting is over and he’s been “INAUGURATED” (I still fail to see the logic in THAT, when he clearly rigged the results), but now the true suffering of the Zimbabwean people start. Those who can’t produce the voting ink on their fingers, will sadly, now be killed.
SO much for human rights!!! In Zim there is only ONE right and that is Mugabe’s will. As he himself claimed “only God can take him from his post”. Well, maybe it’s time the international community act on behalf of God AND the people of Zimbabwe.
My prayers go out to those innocent people and I sincerely hope the powerful leaders in the world would act, before it’s too late! HOW many more innocent people must die, before THEIR human right are met, instead of lifting the ego of an old dictator?????
J Britton
USA
June 30th, 2008 22:39
Dear Sokwanele,
Whilst we must remember that what these poor souls have experienced is similar, and in some respects not as bad, to/as the torture so many Zimbabweans have endured under this brutal regime for the 28 years of its misrule, this is a particularly insane act. It comes barely two weeks before the Campbells appear before the SADC Tribunal, which recently granted them an interdict against the Zanu PF regime. Such a brazen act will undoubtedly infuriate the presiding judges and I pity whoever has to appear on behalf of the regime to justify this type of brutality.
I am reminded of Psalm 7 which will apply with full force:
Psalm7:14 - 16
“He who is pregnant with evil and conceives trouble gives birth to disillusionment.
He who digs a hole and scoops it out falls into the pit he made.
The trouble he causes recoils on himself;
his violence comes down on his own head.”
If Zanu PF regime had planned how to alienate himself from the SADC Tribunal they could not have done a better job than they have though this atrocity.
Regards,
David Coltart
June 30th, 2008 22:41
Zanu will perish with the economy… like stealing rats they will live to their end.
For numbers to call please click below
http://phonenumberszanupf.blogspot.com/
STOP ARMS DEALS WITH ZIMBABWE…petition
http://www.avaaz.org/en/no_arms_for_zimbabwe/2.php/?cl=78842915
http://www.sokwanele.com/thisiszimbabwe/
KICK MUGABE OUT.
http://kickmugabeout.blogspot.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEec3IjVnuM
July 1st, 2008 00:43
just seen this rant by Mugabe on ITV its on Youtube already - the dictator is visibly shaken:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7MljJu-Vk4
Keep up the good work Sokwanele! we will beat him in the end..
July 1st, 2008 04:48
Zanu barbarians at work again.
Good to see Mugabe getting some pressure at the AU summit:
Mugabe attacked by three men in Sharm El Sheikh
http://en.afrik.com/article13975.html
would that be this incident with an ITN reporter, and where he shows he’s losing it.
http://zimbabwemetro.com/2008/06/30/videomugabe-gets-angry-very-angry/
July 1st, 2008 05:09
Corect me if I’m wrong, but according to this article;
http://www.capeargus.co.za/?fArticleId=4481915
Mugabe is staying here for the AU summit;
Lovely place.
http://www.maritim.de/typo3/index.php?id=5081
July 1st, 2008 09:44
The situation in Zimbabwe is Deja Vu… an exact replica of what was happening there 30 years ago. These blatant terrorist acts of abduction, torture and murder aimed at the innocent people of the country is a repeat of old days.
I remember those days well … going for a day-outing to Lake Mac, driving in convoy with at least 3 firearms in the group, Agric-alert radios on farms and in houses, brutal tortures without consideration for race, colour, creed or age… Yes, african terrorism rears its ugly head once again. They can scream racism, colonialism, white/black as much as they like .. truth is, it’s not about colour .. it’s power .. at any cost! A person who is THIS power hungry and who characteristcally displays pathalogical lies, total manipulation of the law and the people, bald-faced disregard for authority and humankind, AND carried out with such intense arrogance about it all would be defined by psychiatrists as a psychopath!
Didn’t you all find it so amusing that Mugabe is bellowing ‘colonialism’ when his own house is decidedly colonial in decor and his inauguration was graced by a man dressed in colonial regalia and a Barristers wig ?!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA It’s long been rumoured that Robert Mugabe has Syphillis of the brain .. I tend to agree because his acts are simply bizarre and without substance!
July 1st, 2008 14:17
Did Grace pass up this opportunity to visit Sharm El Sheikh for shopping and some poolside tanning? Or was she denied this luxury by the military junta who hold her as security so that Mugabe doesn’t do a runner.
One thing is for certain - any deals put on the table in dealing with Mugabe will have to include all the Zimbabwean military bigwigs and possibly a large section of the cabinet.
Such large scale pardoning, as may be required, of a group of known and documented human rights abusers and down-right criminals will possibly be a first in the history of modern international diplomacy.
If democratic governments and institutions respond indecisively for much longer the ideal of democracy and its future as a force of moral well being and development of humankind is seriously compromised.
Talk of governments of national unity seems to be the latest cop-out. The principle of such unity should be to pool resources, taking the best from both sides to build one concerted effort at political and social development. This concept is turning out to be secondary to the current purpose of allowing losers to be winners and sweeping under the carpet a host of misdeeds. This is to say nothing of providing an escape route for some from world justice.
July 1st, 2008 15:41
I just wish the British would stop toying with this man. It’s not nice to play with your food. Put him out of his misery already.
July 1st, 2008 16:53
@ Malcolm
The wives were sitting a few rows behind the front. Grace was there alright.
She seems to have become an even more powerful influence on him in the last few months, and judging by his demented outburst with journalists, he needs all the help he can get.
July 1st, 2008 19:34
Malcolm: Government of National Unity versus Transitional Government or Government of National Healing - these are very different things although I don’t think the news coverage makes this clear.
The GNU (known locally as the Wildebeest) is a dangerous creature and should not be approached. This is how Nkomo got eaten up, and as I understand it the MDC is dead against it (as is nearly everyone else).
A transitional government would exist only to oversee free and fair elections. This involves tip-toeing around the question of whom the generals answer to, but is otherwise what a lot people see as a way forward, i.e. resolving the problem created by the AU-nullified elections. This I think is what the MDC have been making overtures about.
Given the vagueness of media coverage, I think we need to keep a clear head about when people are talking about a GNU and when they are talking about the other thing.
Hope that helps!
July 1st, 2008 22:34
Mike :
Just seen the news clips.
At the end of a two-day summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, AU leaders approved a resolution calling for the “creation of a government of national unity” in Zimbabwe. (BBC website)
So I guess Transitional Government is out of the question.
July 3rd, 2008 10:05
On June the 30th 2008,I celebrated my birthday, what should have been a joyful day was NOT,having been born in Zimbabwe and personally knowing the Campbells, I experienecd grief and tears like never before.
When will these travesities end, when will the “deafning silence” of condemnation resound into action.
Man does not fear danger unless that danger is a coward, as in this case, with the senseless cowardly attack on wonderful people who cared so deeply for their homeland and people.I know that God will be their judge, however when the “rouge leader” belives that he is to rule for life as it is willed by “his” God, then I belive that it is time for God to be left out of the “debate” and man with his ability and gift to choose needs to act or forever share the blame of inaction and apathy.
My thoughts are with all the campbells,”BE STRONG AND KNOW THAT WE ARE HERE FOR YOU…. ESPECIALLY BRUCE,CATHY AND LAURA AND ALL THE KIDS.
July 8th, 2008 20:57
Here is the very definition of “despotism.”
I look forward to the day when the people of Zimbabwe, and all of Africa, will no longer know of fear and poverty but of democracy and peace.
July 21st, 2008 00:15
Don’t stop from what you’re doing… telling to the whole world what’s really going on in Zimbabwe. I live in a country which experienced over 45 years of tirany and that is how I know how important is what are you doing in your way for freedom. Don’t stop, no matter what.
Picior M. (Romania)
July 21st, 2008 14:10
Have you also updated on the fact that the thugs who attacked the Campbells have since been arrested for their evil criminal acts which had nothing to do with Mugabe? Given your obvious anti Mugabe position this fact will be deliberately ignored for maximum effect. I will be lucky if you publish this comment anyway.
July 21st, 2008 14:59
I will do my best to find out if that is true, and if so I will provide the update. Do you have a link to a credible source of information saying that this is so?
July 21st, 2008 20:10
“Maximum Effect”. Nice phrase. Could it be possible to apply it to made up stories too? Now I for one would like to be shown the “fact” that those “thugs” had nothing to do with ZANU-Pee F.
Whether they had anything to do with ZANU or not, still makes it ZANU’s fault. [edit]
What makes the situation even more unbearable is the fact that one can turn on your own people, based on the crap an old washed up megalomaniac spews forward from that toilet he calls a mouth.
My heart goes out to the Zimbabwean people. Hang in there sunshines. Madness does have a limited lifespan.