Statement made by William Bruce Rogers and Annette Mary Rogers
This statement, made by Mr and Mrs Rogers, follows on from our previous post here.
STATEMENT MADE BY WILLIAM BRUCE ROGERS AND ANNETTE MARY ROGERS
On the day of the 6th May, 2008 at approximately 1300 hours I was visited by three men at our farm, Chigwell Extension Farm.
They told me that I had two minutes to vacate my property otherwise they will send the mob there and the house is not worth sacrificing my life for. Because we would lose our lives. They said they were like hungry lions.
My wife made a report to the Chegutu Police Station about this incident, naming the people involved. At that stage I asked them if they would react to any incident that my occur and they informed my wife that they would speak to the Assistant Inspector. My wife also saw him before making the report and informed him of the visit and he told her to go and make a report at the charge office.
At about 1700 hours on the same day a vehicle – a white Datsun 1800 pickup arrived at the gate with approximately 10-12 people. They demanded that I opened the gate because they wanted to talk to me. I refused and went into the house together with my wife. We locked ourselves into the house. They came to the house and wanted me to go outside to speak to them which I refused to do. They started smashing windows and the front door was smashed open. One of them pointed a single barrel shotgun inside the house at us – we were by then upstairs. He fired a shot directly at us which went just over my head and close to my wifes’ head. He obviously intended to kill us. After he fired the shot he went out and it went quiet for a while and then we heard three shots coming from the workers housing area. They returned with all the workers and fired another shot whilst outside.
I managed to get through to the Assistant Inspector and the Chegutu Police Station to ask for assistance before there were dead bodies in the house. He said that I must phone him back in half and hour. Throughout all of this my wife was on the phone to numerous friends who were at the Chegutu Police Station trying to get assistance from them with absolutely no result whatsoever. My wife and I also made many phone calls to the Member in Charge on his cell phone and he refused to answer.
By this time it was dark and the power went off so we were left completely in darkness and unable to identify our own employees.
They then used the workers as a shield so that they could all come inside the house and then were downstairs chanting and singing and making threats.
They sent one of the workers upstairs to demand the shotgun from me to take back to them. I refused and this employee stayed upstairs with us. They then grabbed the son of this employee who was downstairs and from what I could gather they threatened to either kill or injure him if he didn’t go back downstairs with the weapon. He went back downstairs without the weapon. After about five minutes they told all the singing workers to go upstairs using them as a shield once more. We tried to identify the workers one by one as they came up the stairs, as my wife was standing at the top of the stairs with a can of mace. After about 15 workers came through, she could not identify a person and used the mace and sprayed them. After this they ran back downstairs and out of the house.
This incensed the thugs who then proceeded to break down the back door and started a building a fire in the downstairs lounge directly below us. As we have a wooden floor upstairs this posed a great threat and we thought we would be burnt alive which is when I said that we would come out and asked if they would let us leave peacefully which they agreed to do. We asked the ring-leader to identify himself. We came downstairs and they demanded the shotgun from me which was loaded and off safety and I refused. They then insisted that I give it to them and I tried to start unloading it and they attacked me. They then grabbed my wife around the throat and she started screaming. While they were trying to take the shotgun from me three shots went off outside the house into the ground as it is a semi-automatic shotgun. They then took the shotgun from me and wrestled me to the ground and started beating me with what I assume was sticks, or pipes and kicking me with their boots. They dragged my wife outside and they were trying to strangle her. At this stage she managed to bite the hand of the man who was grabbing her round the throat. Whereupon he started to beat her. At one time there were at least four men beating and kicking her.
They then tied me up with rope and threw me into the back of their pickup. At this stage my wife was still being beaten. When they had finished beating her, one of them grabbed her by her feet and dragged her over to the vehicle. They then demanded that she stand up and get into the back of the truck which she was unable to do. One of them grabbed her by the hair, pulled her into a standing position and pushed her up against the back of the truck and told her to get in. She did climb in. They searched my wife and found the car-keys in her pocket and demanded she show them what vehicle the keys were for. They couldn’t find the keys to the other truck. They drove my vehicle onto the lawn, parked near the truck where I was tied up. The immobiliser for the vehicle went off. They demanded that my wife show them where the immobiliser switch was situated which she did do. One of them drove off with the vehicle which we never saw again. They still had all the employees on the lawn around a fire that had been lit by the front door and they were still forced to sing.
There were about four or five of them around the vehicle watching the two of us, all the time they were shouting verbal abuse and racist comments and threatening to kill either one or both of us and also stating the manner in which they should kill us. This must have gone on for almost an hour. They were burning my feet with cigarettes and then we saw vehicle lights shining towards us and then my wife was told to get out of the vehicle and was dragged towards the headlights of the vehicle that had arrived. When she got to the vehicle she saw there were four armed policeman from Kadoma Police Station who asked what had happened. She told them briefly what had happened and demanded that they fetch me immediately from the vehicle as she feared for my life. One of the thugs came and untied me and told me to get out of the vehicle and made me walk towards the headlights of the parked vehicle. I noticed that they were armed policeman. The incident was described in more detail to them and they accompanied us into the house to get some warm clothing. Once we were in the house we saw that the gun cabinet had been opened and ransacked and that my weapons were missing. I informed the police that the weapons were missing. They then took us out of the house and told us to get in their vehicle as we were going to Chegutu Police Station to make a report.
We got to Chegutu Police Station and they had to call some superior officer to take a statement and he only arrived as were were leaving to go to Harare to get urgent medical attention. No police personal of any authority seemed to show any interest in taking our statement.
We were attended to by medical staff at the Avenues Clinic where numerous x-rays and CT scans were taken.
My injuries are two cracked verterbrae in my lower back. Fractured cheekbone, fractured nose there was copious bleeding into my sinuses and extensive lacerations and deep-tissue bruising to my face and back and a bite to my right earlobe.
My wifes injuries are fractured cheekbones, fractures around her orbital socket round her eye, perforated eardrum, cracked ribs and extensive bruising to her face and back and throat.
W.B. ROGERS and A.M. ROGERS
May 14th, 2008 15:12
I am so sorry for the Rogers family. How can people treat other people like this???? When will the crazyiness stop? My thoughts go to the Rogers - know that lots of people around the world are thinking about you and trying to influence our own governments to take a real stand against Mugabe.
May 14th, 2008 18:54
Editor, tell me something .Was it that bad under Ian Smith. I didnt know one man one vote meant ‘vote Mugabe only’. I am sure many didnt know it was about him and not Zimbabwe.Through you Mr Editor I humbly appeal to the UN to intervene. UN must stop ‘THE KILLING FIELDS ’ Khamer Rouge or the Rwandan style genocide . ‘Being concerned’ with the unfolding tragedy in Zimbabwe is not enough.Practical action is what is needed to save Zimbabweans from their vampire government.
May 14th, 2008 19:55
Ijahman - Yes the old racist adage for Majority Rule in Africa is actually ”One man - One vote - ONCE”.
Funny how those old jokes become reality time after time in Africa thanks to creatures like Mugabe.
Indeed, I agree - Zim needs peace keeping intervention more now than it never has in its history. I don’t believe for one minute that Mugabe ever actually WON one single election fairly and squarely during his reign. Now is the time to teach him a lesson. I can recall the rife intimidation and duress he turned on the rural Zimbabweans prior to winning that first election in 1980 - even though many would decry that.
I also remember what living through a terrorist war was like. Liberator or not - Mugabe has ALWAYS been a terrorist, exercising extreme fear against white and black alike to get his way, all the while pretending to be a statesman.
The leopard NEVER changes its spots.
May 14th, 2008 23:12
This type of behaviour will lead to the complete downfall for Africa as a whole, and can only be the result of racist terrorist leaders like Mugabe reigning terror on the people. Fortunately the majority of black Zimbos do know it is the wrong way, and sincerely hope they use their influence to set an example of how to live in peace along side of all races and to be tolerant with each other and realize that there are no perfect race and accept their differences too.We need to become the example for Africa, we can do it and we will, but at the same time we now need intervention from outside as it seems there seems to be a general revenge trip on the Matabele nation as a whole besides the revenge for the opposition movement. The blood flow must end now.
May 14th, 2008 23:36
God, Our Heavenly Father, Please spare your children, how long should they suffer under one man like this. I sympathise with Mr. & Mrs. Rogers, no man should suffer like this.
What has gotten into Zimbabweans, always known as peace loving, whose children are these thugs? Why has the world forsaken us.
I am appalled at the barbaric way these group of thugs are treating other humans who are just like them. How do they sleep at night? How much have they been paid, is this really worth any amount of money, such short lived miserable fame.
God, you have promised that you will never leave nor forsake us, please send your angels to guard over the families who are perishing under Robert Mugabe. We cannot ask why God, so please hear our prayers. Let him keep the land, but please spare God’s people, they have not done anything wrong, but expressed their free will.
May 15th, 2008 12:56
I am Zimbabwean and grew up in the 70s there. I have heard accounts of violence like this by severely traumatised people all my life. The current violence is in my opinion reactivating historical traumas and is going to create problems for future generations as well. I think it is so important that there be these visible accounts of the violence and that the perpetrators know they will be held accountable, because part of this culture has been the lawlessness the Rogers speak of - the police turning a blind eye - and the fact that Zimbabweans tend to bury this trauma in the desire for peace. How important is this semi-silenced memory of violence to Mugabe in his tactics to hold onto power by terrorising and how does this legacy of fear paralyse people? I am interested in talking/writing to other Zimbabweans about this, to open up space for dealing with how this violence affects us (wherever we are). If anyone is interested please leave a posting here and I’ll then set up an email address to get it going.
May 15th, 2008 16:26
tc
Go ahead and open up dialogue and I am sure people will participate. I believe people want to be part of a group that yield results. Just talking is not what Zimbabweans want at this point, but talking with solutions on how to stop the carnage, where they can go to get their wounds healed. They want Peace.
May 15th, 2008 19:14
Thanks for your comments Rosemary. Anybody who thinks this could be of some use should write to zspeakpoint@gmail.com. I will then send them the password and we can use the address itself as a platform. My idea with that is to make the space a bit more private. I don’t have the means to set it up any other way but ideas are welcome.
My personal point of view is that Sokwanele and other sites already provide a good space for finding ways to act that give real results. My idea was more a space for dialogue and I don’t know what direction it could really take or how we could do it. It will depend on what others want or think.
May 16th, 2008 14:32
Dear William and Annette,
Your story will be published in Europe! Be sure, the Dutch audience will hear your voice. Keep up your work and be strong. A lot of christians in the world - black and white - are praying for a better Zimbabwe. Once Mugabe will be judged!
May 30th, 2008 14:51
To William and Annette Rogers, and to all unnamed people suffering so horrifically there in Zimbabwe, please know that there are many many people around the world in far off places who hearts break for each and every one of you and who would end what is happening in an instant if they had the power.
The evil being perpetrated is unthinkable.
Talk to us as often as you can.
Tell the world what is going on.
Get the information out, every little bit, any way you can - internet, letters, sms. Names, dates, places, actions… tell, tell, tell!
Evil-doers most fear exposure - well documented, detailed testimony and supporting evidence of their actions.
So, my fellow human beings, survive as best you can, and to live to tell your stories and see better days. No matter what is happening to you and your loved ones, know that there are people who desire to end your suffering and are doing what they can to try to stop it and bring the perpetrators to justice.
Jules
(Western Australia)
June 6th, 2008 12:21
This is my Mum and Dad, and I would like to say on behalf of my entire family…thank you to everyone for you supporting words. They have meant the world to us all at a time like this.
The Rogers Family