Joshua Bakacheza’s body found
This information received via email:
The body of missing Joshua Bakacheza, MDC driver for Mashonaland West was discovered late on Saturday the 5th of July 2008, decomposing in a secluded bushy area on a farm in Beatrice, some 30 km out of Harare, two weeks after his abduction and disappearance by suspected state security agents. Bakacheza was abducted on the afternoon of June 25 in Msasa, Harare, together with another MDC activist, Tendai Chidziwo while assisting murdered MDC activist, Tonderai Ndira’s wife to move her furniture and personal belongings to another residential area where she had sought accommodation after complaining that she no longer felt safe at her home in Mabvuku, a sprawling township area on the outskirts of Harare along the Harare – Mutare highway.
Three unmarked double cab trucks ambushed them, movie style, one in front, one from behind and the other on the left hand side, forcing them to stop and 16 men armed with AK assault rifles disembarked. They then hijacked the MDC truck loaded with the furniture and drove Tendai and Joshua to Beatrice, leaving Tonderai’s widow and her two children standing by the roadside, trembling from fright and crying. Once there they tortured the two, asking questions relating to their involvement in the MDC and then shot them both. Joshua was shot 3 times and Tendai was shot once on the right side of the head and their assailants left them for dead.
Warning: Opening up the rest of this post will reveal two shocking images of Joshua’s body
Tendai miraculously managed to survive the shooting and dragged himself for about fifty meters from the scene, to a nearby gravel road that joins the main Harare – Masvingo highway, about 6 km away. A Good Samaritan assisted him to Beatrice and then Harare after finding him in a state of unconsciousness.
Once in Harare he was admitted into the Intensive Care Unit of a local clinic where he remained in a coma for close to a week. Once awake, Tendai Chidziwo gave information as to where his fellow comrade’s body could be found leading to its discovery after a 2 week desperate search by family members and work mates from the MDC’s Mashonaland West Provincial Offices. The search had covered all of Harare’s hospitals and mortuaries and police stations including outlying areas.
State security agents tortured, then murdered Ndira, MDC National Youth Assembly secretary for security after they kidnapped him at his home in Mabvuku, Harare on the 21st of May 2008. Abductions, murders and violence against perceived MDC members continue countrywide, more two weeks after the rigged one man election. The whereabouts of hundreds of kidnapped MDC personnel remains unknown.
This is just a single example of all the violence carried out by state security agents that is worsening in Zimbabwe as part of the plan by Mugabe and the military junta to eliminate the MDC completely.
July 7th, 2008 11:34
I pray that when we feel this RAGE, that we will not succumb and may use it in a positive way. I pray that every person out there will join and help to stop the horror…
It must be stopped.
July 7th, 2008 12:25
Words fail me. This trully is the height of all babarism. How does Mugabe even begin to justify this. My prayers are with Joshua’s family. May they find peace.
July 7th, 2008 12:44
Is there a way of getting these pictures to President Robert Mugabe so that he knows what we know and we will make it our business to let the world know about all these murders
July 7th, 2008 12:57
I cannot imagine the rage and trauma that Joshua’s family must be going through.
As ghastly, brutal and barbaric these crimes are, showing utter disrepect for human life, we must continue to show these shocking images to the world.
Hopefully very soon, world leaders will have seen enough of the horror inflicted by Mugabe’s regime, and will finally do something to get rid of them for good.
July 7th, 2008 13:02
I am stumped for words, but these things must really end. The emotional scars to the families and people in general can take years to heal if ever. Is it not enough that we need to rebuild a country, let alone to still have to attend to the severe trauma and stress that people endure daily, my prayers to all those suffering and let our rage not turn into anything like that ever.
July 7th, 2008 13:46
Iam stunned, spechless, just for the love of power. God is there, they will pay up one day. If they think they will get away with it then their children will have to face it.
July 7th, 2008 14:45
Just wishing it was Robert Mogabe lying there. The whole world would be a better place.
July 7th, 2008 14:58
Mugabe knows, he ordered it.
The world knows.
No one will help.
You will have to fight, like your ancestors did.
That, or wait to be next.
July 7th, 2008 15:12
I am shocked tjis could be happening at Mugabe’s nose. is there a way we could send messages directly to Mugabe’s attention, including such images.
I wonder which Zimbabwe he is purpoting to be defending from imperialists, is this the independence we fought for.
i pray for Joshua’s spirit, his family and many others who have faced or coninue to suffer such horrors.
July 7th, 2008 16:07
Mugabe gloats over such things – sending those pics to him simply reinforces his sadistic sense of ultimate power. Do you really think the devil is concerned over pain and harm? Well, neither are Bob or his henchmen. Never forget – this is a man who seized power ‘through the barrel of a gun’ – in every demented sense of the phrase.
Something else must be done than relying upon good behaviour to suddenly inhabit Bob – I expect everyone knows what it should be, but the time may not yet be ripe. Sometimes one has to create one’s own destiny. History will tell.
Good luck and God be with you.
July 7th, 2008 19:17
My heart is burdened by the evil that Mugabe and his agents are unleashing on the weak and vulnerable. African leaders are a disgrace for failing to act appropiately on Zimbabwe. They are not serious and should stop demanding respect from the rest of the world when they can’t get their house in order.
July 7th, 2008 19:39
Remember Cain Nkala’s body being flighted on ZBC TV for weeks until my 5 year old child, then, told me this was disgusting.
What can stop Zanu pf saying it was the MDC. They’ll chant ‘Where’s the evidence!’ TO PROVE IT WAS zanu militias and twist issues as they always do.
Ladies and gentlemen what we are faced with is the cowardly bullying of frightened old men who have brutalised and dehumanised their own people to the point of something akin to canibalism.
Anyone who condones this, be it intellectually or racially, really needs their head checked. And we have plenty.
July 7th, 2008 20:53
POLITICAL GENOCIDE….I AM SO ANGRY
July 7th, 2008 21:51
well we are a bunch of cowards period
July 8th, 2008 01:23
@Tara
What rage? There is no rage in Zimbabwe. There is more rage in South Africa on the blogs by South Africans against Mugabe/ZANU than expressed by by any Zimbabwean. One white SA commentor on one of the articles I read even offered to put together a little mercenary force to sort out Mugabe. That is rage, that is commitment.
It has come to the point that those most vehemently defending Morgan/MDC/Average Zimbabwean now believe you are happy to just roll over and die from starvation with your last words a whimpering “but we are a peaceful people”.
I have now decided that I am tired of spending my time defending you against the pro Mugabe faction evident on any articles comments or blogs to do with Zimbabwe.
You are cowards, you deserve what you get.
A disgusted ex MDC supporter in SA
July 8th, 2008 04:05
No point sending him these photos -
The Devil ordered these and numerous other atrocities.
It is high time the Catholic Church ex-communicated him. He is a disgrace and an insult to all true catholics.
July 8th, 2008 09:13
How has he (Magabe) been able to get away with it for so long. What else needs to be done. Tete it is genocide there is no other way to describe what is taking place in this our beloved land.
My thoughts and prayers are with Joshua’s family may they know that we are all crying with them.
July 8th, 2008 11:05
Those who call Zimbabweans cowards are obviously not living in the country! If you are so brave come and face the militia! Come and be beaten, burnt, tortured and imprisoned without hope of any just trial. Rage, yes, there is plenty of rage, but it will not win a democratic government so it must be channeled into useful action. Be honest with yourself before you call anyone else a coward!
July 8th, 2008 11:19
@Pan:-
Revolutionary thoughts Pan, and sadly, very sadly, I think you have a point. Somewhere, sometime Zimbos in Zim need to stand up and be counted.
I feel guilty writing from (my relatively) safe new life in Joburg (ha ha) while suggesting Zimbos have to face their own music. But the trouble is, in real life, how often does somebody else actually get up and face your music for you? In reality it happens seldom – if at all – in any walk of life you care to consider. And so too with your own problem.
So, while at some point the World may indeed have its conscience weighed down by the fact that it (yet again) did nothing to help a Good People with a Good Cause in Good Time, waiting for that auspicious day is not going to make your problem go away. It may be up to you guys.
It is important for you to realise this.
Remember – “Courage is not the absense of fear, but the knowledge that there is something MORE IMPORTANT than it”.
July 8th, 2008 11:56
With respect to @Ants and @Pan, I think your comments are v.patronising to Zimbabweans who know better than anyone else what their situation is. What do you want them to do?
When I hear people criticise Zimbabweans like that then I think that it is them who have given up because they are looking for a quick-fix. There isn’t one. Wash your hands of Zim if you want, but please don’t you dare say you are moving on because ZIMBABWEANS have failed. It is YOU who have given up.
The options available to Zimbabweans in the 2000s are limited & it looks like Zimbabweans are doing whatever they can with what they have available to them. Be realistic and be fair.
July 8th, 2008 13:41
mugabe and his joc had two choices.
1) Give up power and wealth and face the very real possibility of trials in the Hague.
2) Retain their power and wealth at any cost.
Which path do you think they have chosen?
Zimbabweans have all become slaves…having fed the crocodile 20,000 Ndebele (to mugabe’s 5 brigade) and subsequently allowing absolute constitutional powers to the old man, there are now no others left to be fed to the crocodile. Injustices were ignored and now it is you who face the injustice.
“As for me, give me liberty or give me death.”
July 8th, 2008 13:52
@Realistic
I’m sorry to have piqued you. You see, what I meant is that it occurs to me that people who support Zim from outside are even more helpless than you at home. We sit here writing yards of commments hoping that some Big Brother Government or Organisation will heed our cries for (your) help and rescue Zim (and if you look back through all the blogs you’ll note I’m an ardent Bob-hater and MDC-supporter).
But the reality might just be that the solution does NOT lie in what we “give upperers” as you call us, say or hope for or cry about. It may lie with you guys back at the ranch, so to speak.
All I can say is that if my comments (& Pan’s) sting – the sting may be less from the words we have said than the truth they carry.
But believe me – I am truly sorry there is a sting at all.
And “giving up” is both a relative and subjective thing – I made a choice because I could and it was in my family’s best interest. It does not make me a traitor. In reality I lost any power to seriously contribute to Zimbabwe’s future at about the time I lost my farm. So shoot me for being at least honest to myself!
I might remind you that Zimbabweans’ options are in reality no more limited in the 2000s than, oh for example, the French people’s in 1789. Just maybe the choices the French people made back then were more liberating.
July 8th, 2008 15:23
“Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
“But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate—we cannot consecrate—we cannot hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honoured dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth.â€
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
July 8th, 2008 16:40
The Gettysburg Address will live on through the ages. Not just, of course in America, but throughout the world as the perfect, yet simple, message of the need to fight on.
All wars are terrible. Civil wars are amongst the meanest and most cruel. Yet to summon up the courage to ‘take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion’ is the ultimate call not to give up, but to redeem the sacrifices of fallen comrades by not giving up the struggle.
A mavellous message!
July 8th, 2008 21:21
Fighting Mugabe by force, being a Zimbabwean citizen, is to sign your death warrant. The economy is weak Trade union strike action is ineffectual. Gun battles are futile because it takes time to train and fight and from which bases? Zanu will cry foul when they get hit hard.
All you need are the tactics of the famed Gwesela who embarrassed the Zimbabwean army to the point of them killing an innocent man and flighting his decomposed body for weeks on ZBC claiming it was Gwesela.
Thirdly please refraine from accuations about Zimbabweans being weak and being cowards we saw the guerrila war, the Matebeleland massacres and now this. Please get real and stop theorising about the demise of a nation.
What ever happened to peacefull but alert negotiations. Something unlike the ZAPU zanu agreement which cemented the bullying of a party by another. A review of the present constitution could be a start.
The Musikas and John Nkomos are really trapped in this murder now.
July 9th, 2008 11:15
I’m deeply saddened and my heart is troubled by the brutal acts of those who do not fear the lord. We must continue to have faith in the lord and pray that one day we will have a god-fearing national leadership. Mwari varikuzviona zvirikuitika munyika.
July 9th, 2008 14:00
This is the photo which Gordon Brown used at the G8 to ’shock’ the other leaders into supporting sanctions.
This is an amazing moment for the power of the internet and for your work Sokwanele.
More about this here
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/09/zimbabwe.g8
July 9th, 2008 15:30
For Vela:
You can wait for Mbeki to come and save Zim and I wish you well.
The only real possibility of relief without the repressed Zimbabweans doing it for themselves is for mugabe/joc to be somehow separated from all sources of foreign exchange. When they can no longer pay their cio/army/police enough to buy food then the whole mess would collapse…and it would do so with amazing rapidity.
To do this without the cooperation of China, South Africa and, to a lesser degree, Russia will be extremely difficult for the UK and US to accomplish even though they’re trying hard.
The UA and SADC heads of state are still wandering around in the mists of anti-colonialism – many in power for as long as mugabe and by the same methods. Not only are they of little assistance, they are a hindrance.
If you are white, I agree, fighting would be suicide – you can’t hide in a crowd.
July 9th, 2008 20:47
Lobhengula
How can we go about this. I have no faith in Mbeki too. Secondly, to be realistic taking on Mugabe as you suggest will be intersting. For a fight the way he does it will take DECADES. Also sanctions will be debated and actioned after a longwinded diplomatic debacle from which zanu seems to thrive.
Remember Zimbabwe has some good diplomats who can argue their case convincingly in the international arena.
Remember Mutambara has been at it having photo shoots with mugabe and all. If this happens then to the world negotiations are taking place. They don’t scrutinise issues in Zim the way you and I do. And as we speak zanu is strategising a semblance of reconciliation and order while you and I know what will be happening behind the scenes.
Please indulge me in the detail of what your scheme things could be. I am ready to take advice in this regard.
July 10th, 2008 00:01
Vela,
You go about this by sitting back and letting Bush and Brown do their thing.Brown shone at the G8 by showing the participants the same picture as above of Joshua Bakacheza’s burnt body. Brown got the G8 to trash the latest election and basically shamed the Arfican “leaders” who attended.
Meanwhile, back at the UN, the US has gotten the UN to vote (probably this week) on sanctions for Zim…to wit…Mugabe and 14 of his joc can’t travel anywhere. Their assets will be frozen throughout the world. A world-wide arms embargo. The first 2 seem to be having an effect, especially since it seems likely Russia won’t vote (abstain) and the same with China who is facing enough difficulties trying to save face in view of Tibet and the upcoming olympics.
This may be the other possible scenario regarding mugabe and his round table. Unfortunately any negotiated settlement will likely lead to immunity for the worst offenders among them. That’s always the way in order to get rid of them.
Good luck…we’ll need it!
July 12th, 2008 00:39
For Vela:
Tsvangarai and the MDC seem to be politically brain-dead.
The mere appearance of negotiating with zanu (even though it’s only meaningless talks about talks), has given Russia and China the “out” they needed to vote against sanctions. They can now claim “Why upset things now that the belligerant parties are negotiating?”
Tsvangarai and MDC needed to hold off just a few days until after the vote. They have now lost all leverage in any negotiating that might take place. mugabe and zanu must be howling with laughter over MDC stupidity.
If a democratic majority should ever run Zimbabwe, perhaps they would do well to remember the actions of China, Russia and South Africa on this day!
July 12th, 2008 09:43
this is sad but did you guys notice that this same picture appeared in the papers during the Mozambican civil war [matsanga] era. It looks exactly the same. maybe same tactics were used but its like the same person
July 12th, 2008 10:42
Thanks for that observation Lobhengula. Manje they have signed another arms deal with China.
These guys are toying around with the people’s lives in their quest to prove the weight of their balls.
I pray that we do not fall into the Somali situation, having the west and the east playing chess over our plight.
I really wonder what proof is needed for this. Methinks madness is really rife in China. I hope no natural disaster will befall the Olimpics.
July 12th, 2008 14:49
in momemnts like this what then can we say. With all this blood crying in the ground where can zimbabwe go. The damage has been done already. Will wait for his death
July 12th, 2008 14:52
Vela:
Here’s a quote from the Chinese UN ambassador regarding their UN vote…
Wang Guangya said “Zimbabwe was best left to conduct its own talks on how to resolve its political crisis.”
“The development of the situation in Zimbabwe until now has not exceeded the context of domestic affairs,” he said. “It (sanctions) will unavoidably interfere with the negotiation process.”
This is how the MDC gave China the “out” they were looking for regarding “negotiations”. zanu can now spit in Tsvangarai’s face in RSA talks.
Perhaps RSA would change position if another 7 million Zimbabweans head south!
July 12th, 2008 18:07
And the Chinese and the Russians are immune to humane feelings and sympathy. All they are after are to spite the west using African bodies(Russia) and petty China has no feelings for her own people let alone African blood which they are spilling in the name of their belated so called development.
They can veto and disagree but deep down they know they are murderers who are looting Africa at all costs. How many of their development projects have been a success in Zimbabwe and Africa all they heve offered is half hearted or rejects (remember the zhingzhongs)
I know that the hall in Warren park is sinking if not already sunk, the one that was meant to replace Stodart hall for the heroes body viewing etc. The so called national sports stadium has cracks that can fit a five year old’s head. And some people are called racist. Go to China and see how tolerant they are to blacks.
No wonder they are using fools like the Zimbabwean junta who will kill their own to preserve their positions until nature terminates them.
The Chinese by the way still execute their opposition activists in the grossest way and so does Russia with their radioactive poisons.
Are we going back to the cold war using spite and cheap vengeance. This is getting to be a diplomatic tug of war for which some goons will think they are invincible while identifying with what they don’t understand. Mere tools, fanatics of outdated communism, fascists, tribalists, genocidal beasts who strut about claiming to represent a new era which they can’t even percieve.
July 12th, 2008 18:17
Chitsidzo
If you are not convinced by this one look at the others there are many. I don’t think it’s time for what you are suggesting. It could be similar to what you have seen before. Remember there is a pattern here. Of the type of torture as well as the murders.
Any murder picture is about the same thing, death, do you want a DNA test to be done at this point in time?
July 12th, 2008 18:24
Sorry Chitsidzo
sounded a bit abrupt there please accept my apologies.
July 13th, 2008 15:27
To Vela,
I think you have summed it up pretty well. It looks like Zimbabwe will get another 5 years of grandpa bob. If mugabe/zanu feel philanthropic they might now toss Tsvangarai a bone.
On the UN sanctions South Africa voted no with China, Russia, Libya and Vietnam. You are known by the company you keep…I haven’t heard of anyone trying to emigrate to those countries.
The darkness never did like the light. Zimbabwe continues its plummet into the abyss.
Lobengula