Zimbabwe in Chains
Chapter 1
Helen called me on the Wednesday and asked, rather hurriedly, if I could meet her for coffee at the Radisson Blu on Beach Road near Cape Town’s Waterfront the coming Sunday. She had another assignment for me, but there were risks involved, she said matter-of-factly.
“It’s an all-expenses-paid gig to Zimbabwe covering the forthcoming elections for the Mail on Sunday,” she began. “The tabloids are the only ones with money these days,” she added with a laugh.
We agreed on 9am on the verandah overlooking Table Bay.
We sat in dazzling sunshine beneath an azure sky. Though warm, cool air drifted in off the Atlantic, as if some giant refrigerator door had been left ajar for our benefit. Out across the bay, Robben Island floated on a thin ribbon of platinum sea mist.
Helen was an old Africa hand. She’d arrived from Britain in the early 1980s just as PW Botha’s apartheid regime was entering one of its more paranoid phases and the police state was ramping up. By 2008 she had covered most of the continent and looked battle-hardened by it. “Mugabe’s security police will be everywhere,” she said flatly. “Roadblocks all over town. We’ll need to stay very undercover.”
“We dress like tourists. Act like old friends,” she smiled. “A charade, yes, but a necessary one if we want to stay out of prison.” I took a long gulp of cappuccino when she used the word prison.
The arrival protocol was simple.
I was to fly to Harare the following week on South African Airways carrying US$10,000 cash she would hand over before departure. Half of it I was to exchange at the airport into Zimbabwe dollars.
“Get a cab to the Meikles Hotel. A room’s already booked. Your fixers, Alfred and Joseph, will be waiting in the lobby.”
Once settled in, I was to hire a car and darken the windows.
“I’ll arrive two days later from Addis,” she continued. “While I’m away, scout around. Work out where the polling booths are. And see if you can find opposition supporters who’ve been beaten by Mugabe’s goons.”
She sipped her coffee. “Try not to get caught before I arrive.”
After asking for the bill, she slipped a thick envelope across the table and told me to be careful with the money.
Then she stood, smiled and said: “See you in Harare.”
Chapter 2
The SAA 737 had recently been repainted, but there was no disguising its age. From the slim cigar-shaped Pratt & Whitney engines and their deafening whine during takeoff, I could tell this old bird was a relic from the Suid-Afrikaanse Lugdiens era. It had probably been sitting on the apron at Jan Smuts Airport back in 1975 when we emigrated from England to South Africa.
Back then SAA had been regarded as Africa’s finest airline.
By 2008 it was sliding toward bankruptcy and flying its better aircraft to more glamorous destinations. Harare was clearly not one of them.
The flight was nearly empty.
A scattering of African businessmen occupied first class while, further back, a group of white passengers in blue UN vests huddled together in the middle seats. Election observers, I presumed. Sent to persuade Robert Mugabe to conduct himself democratically.
Wishful thinking.
Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC supporters were already enduring intimidation, beatings and torture. Only the year before, Tsvangirai himself had been badly assaulted after detention at Machipisa Police Station.
I kept to myself on the flight. Given my bogus tourist status, it felt wise not to fraternize with anyone remotely connected to election monitoring. Plain-clothed security agents could be anywhere.
Harare in May was cool and dry like Johannesburg. The morning sun was bright, but walking across the apron toward the shabby terminal beneath cloudless blue skies, there was a distinct chill in the air.
I began to feel nervous.
Before leaving South Africa, I’d agreed with my two fixers that if questioned by immigration I would claim to be an English teacher visiting old friends in Harare before flying on to Bulawayo. If they searched my bags and found cameras and telephoto lenses, I’d explain that I was an enthusiastic wildlife photographer.
The immigration officer wore dark Ray-Bans, a plum-coloured beret and a green tunic. He gave me the creeps immediately.
He thumbed slowly through my passport. “British,” he finally said. “Purpose of your visit?” “Tourist,” I replied confidently. He stared at me for what felt like a full minute before finally stamping the passport with a heavy thud. Only then did I breathe again.
The arrivals hall was dim, dusty and almost empty. I headed for the bureau de change intending to convert at least US$1,000 into local currency in case roadblocks required lubrication. Zimbabwe’s hyperinflation had reached surreal levels.
Inside the gloomy little booth sat a man in khaki beneath a handwritten sign that read: US$1 = Z$2,621,984,228
Even then I nearly laughed.
The man stood up slowly and pushed one hand through the bars to collect my dollars. Only then did I realize he was missing an arm. On his remaining hand he had just three fingers. I remember thinking: Christ, with this bloke counting Zimbabwe dollars, I’m going to spend the rest of my life standing at this window.
Chapter 3
As we trundled along the airport road on the north side of Hatfield, I sat in the back of the Toyota taxi making mental notes.
Though considered one of Harare’s more affluent suburbs, the place still looked shabby. Potholes cratered the roads. Street signs leaned drunkenly. Everything appeared dusty and neglected. Then, around a bend ahead, I saw the roadblock.
Razor wire stretched across the road with only a narrow gap in the middle. A policeman in fatigues stood guard clutching what looked like an old Enfield rifle. Parked on the verge behind him sat a battered blue Land Rover beside a folding camping table where two more officers lounged.
As we slowed, I opened a copy of The Star I’d picked up in Johannesburg and pretended to read. The policeman peered in through the open window. First at the driver, then at me. I lowered the newspaper and smiled. “Good morning officer. Beautiful morning isn’t it?” He studied me carefully. “Holiday or business?”
“On my way to Bulawayo,” I replied casually. “Spending one night in Harare.”
He exchanged a few words with the driver in Shona, then wandered around to inspect the boot. I sat rigid, silently counting seconds. The envelope of cash was inside my suitcase. Eventually the boot slammed shut again. The driver climbed back in and the policeman waved us through. Only then did I realize I’d been holding my breath.
The last time I’d visited Harare, in 1998 on a Barclays advertising job, I remembered it as orderly and strangely calm. Now the city looked exhausted. Far more bedraggled.
There were people everywhere. Hawkers lined the pavements selling whatever they could. Many shops stood shuttered and abandoned. Zimbabwe’s economy had imploded and unemployment had exploded with it. Police and security men lingered on street corners carrying batons.
As we drove along Jason Moyo Avenue I saw the Meikles Hotel rising above the surrounding decay like some relic from another era. Harare’s lone five-star refuge.
Arthur and Joseph were nowhere to be seen in the lobby.
I checked in and was shown to a surprisingly elegant room. I locked away the dollars, passport, laptop and camera bodies in the safe, then collapsed on the bed waiting for reception to call.
Had I known that within forty-eight hours my sleeping arrangements would become considerably less luxurious — and considerably more fragrant — I might have appreciated that king-size mattress a little more.
Chapter 4
Joseph and Arthur were sitting together beneath a large window in the hotel lobby when I came downstairs carrying my camera bag. At least I hoped it was them.
They certainly didn’t look like secret police, though by now I was becoming suspicious of everyone. I still felt uneasy carrying the camera bag openly. Helen had warned me that plain-clothed security operatives watched the Meikles carefully.
The chubbier of the two stood first. He had dreadlocks, a scraggly beard and was missing a front tooth, which became immediately apparent when he smiled and offered his hand. “I’m Joseph.” Arthur looked older, leaner and tidier. Quiet but alert.
I sat opposite them and slid the camera bag beneath the table.We exchanged pleasantries and I was relieved to discover they were experienced fixers who knew Harare well. They understood the risks and had played this cat-and-mouse game before. The plan, such as it was, relied heavily on darkened car windows.
“The tint keeps you invisible,” Arthur explained. Not entirely reassuring.
I suggested they handle the window tinting themselves while dropping me nearby. A white foreigner standing around central Harare supervising blacked-out windows felt unnecessarily conspicuous.“Always better to be safe than sorry,” Arthur said. Down in the basement parking garage we climbed into a dull red Toyota Corolla. A faded Ndebele blanket lay across the back seat. Joseph started the engine, turned to me and grinned. “If we hit a roadblock, you hide under that.”
I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or panic. Probably both.
Chapter 5
Back on the streets of Harare, peering through grimy tinted windows as we headed for the tint shop, I observed desperate people in a desperate city. Official unemployment was said to be around 80 percent. Hyperinflation had become so absurd it almost ceased to have meaning. Food production nationwide had collapsed. Long lines of people stood outside shops hoping for kerosene, bread, sugar, cooking oil — anything. Most stores were practically empty.
The urban poor looked especially vulnerable. They shuffled about with hollow expressions, carrying plastic bags containing next to nothing. Yet oddly enough the KFC was still open and doing brisk business to those in suits who still held government or office jobs. Africa often has that strange duality.
Total dysfunction beside complete normality.I offered the lads an early lunch while the windows were being tinted. We sat eating trillion-dollar burgers and discussing the plan.
First stop would be Warren Park, west of the city near one of Harare’s major landfill sites. A poor neighbourhood where support for Mugabe’s ZANU-PF was weak and stories of intimidation and beatings were circulating.
We would try locate opposition supporters willing to show injuries.
Later we’d head to Mbare, another sprawling high-density suburb south-west of the city centre. Joseph claimed there were houses there being used by ZANU-PF youth militia and so-called “war veterans” to intimidate MDC supporters.
As the day’s mission unfolded before me, I realized I was willingly placing myself in fairly serious danger. Still, I’d signed up for this.
Helen would arrive Monday. Once she was there I assumed things might feel steadier. She’d done far more of this sort of work than I had. At least that’s what I told myself.
Chapter 6
All across Warren Park there were open plots of land filled with freshly dug graves. HIV and cholera were killing Zimbabweans at alarming rates, though I suspected some of the graves belonged to MDC supporters who had died rather less naturally.
Necklacing — copied from South African township violence — had become another form of punishment. There was nothing glamorous about getting a necklace. The tyre jammed over your shoulders and arms ensured you bounced helplessly while petrol sloshed around your body before someone finally struck the match. The area felt eerily quiet.
Small brick homes sat half-derelict beneath a pale sky. Nothing green anywhere. No gardens. No flowers. Hardly any people outdoors. It felt as though everyone had collectively decided that staying unseen was the safest policy.
Before long I could smell the landfill. Its stench arrived well before the dump itself came into view. When we finally saw it there were men, women and children in rags picking through steaming heaps of rubbish beneath swirling clouds of flies.
I asked Joseph to keep driving. I didn’t want to draw unnecessary attention to myself.
Further along the road we spotted an elderly man scavenging alone beside a wire cart piled with scrap. Joseph wound down the window and spoke to him in Shona.
The old man had grey hair, a tangled beard and eyes so milky they seemed almost white. His skin resembled elephant hide — dusty grey and deeply cracked.
After a brief exchange he gestured toward a cluster of women resting beneath a lonely tree further up the road. “He says those women support MDC,” Joseph translated. “One was beaten recently.” We crawled forward. Joseph told them we were from a newspaper.
Eventually one woman in a yellow dress approached the car. Without much hesitation she lifted her skirt enough to reveal angry red welts and what looked like cigarette burns high on her thighs. I asked whether she would stand near the open rear window so I could photograph the injuries while remaining inside the vehicle.
I wasn’t interested in Pulitzer Prize photographs. I merely wanted evidence.
Though I had a growing suspicion that carrying such evidence around Harare was going to cause me considerable stress.
Chapter 7
Mbare was busier. Far busier. People milled everywhere among broken-down cars, rubbish fires and sagging houses. Mangy dogs barked from chains tied to poles. Music blasted from battered speakers balanced on pavements. ZANU-PF posters covered walls and fences.
As we approached one intersection near a petrol station — one not actually selling petrol because supplies had run dry — crowds were gathering for a rally.
Saturday and Sunday would both see large ZANU-PF demonstrations across the city. The plan today was to avoid them. Tomorrow I would need photographs.
Joseph told me there was a ZANU-PF militia compound down a nearby street. My stomach tightened immediately.
He parked directly opposite the building and killed the engine.
I felt horribly exposed sitting in the back despite the dark windows. Hidden, yes, but not invisible. I snapped a few frames of the red-brick building just as two men in green fatigues emerged and wandered off down the street. We didn’t linger.
There seemed little point in pushing our luck. I knew how quickly situations in Africa could shift from mildly tense to catastrophically bad. Usually all it took was one curious man tapping on your window and asking too many questions.
I already had photographs of beatings stored on my flash cards. Now I also had images of militia premises. That felt sufficient for one day. I suggested we return to the hotel, dump the files onto the laptop and calm ourselves with a few Zambezi beers. Nobody argued.
Chapter 8
Back at the hotel there was a text message waiting from Helen.
Her arrival had been delayed. She would now land Monday afternoon instead of Sunday evening. I dumped the day’s photographs onto an external hard drive and locked everything in the safe. That night I slept surprisingly well.
The next morning, after a leisurely breakfast, we headed back onto the streets. Polling day was approaching and ZANU-PF supporters had begun gathering in large numbers around the city centre. Party officials stood atop flatbed trucks with megaphones extolling the virtues of eighty-four-year-old Robert Mugabe — liberation hero, freedom fighter, father of the nation.
Plenty of Zimbabweans privately wished the old man would simply die.
Everyone wore ZANU-PF shirts emblazoned with Mugabe’s face. Morgan Tsvangirai by contrast seemed almost invisible.
By now I’d grown more comfortable hiding in plain sight. The tinted windows were working. As we crawled through traffic I lifted the camera to narrow gaps in the window and photographed dancing ZANU supporters waving clubs and pangas while chanting slogans. We spent most of the day locating polling stations. Tents erected on open fields, school grounds and municipal halls.
Everyone was being encouraged to vote.
The only problem, of course, was that armed ZANU thugs often stood nearby watching. Nothing says democracy quite like a man with a baton observing your ballot choices. For the most part the day passed uneventfully. We encountered several roadblocks but our “English teacher friends going for drinks” routine continued to work.
Actually one incident did stand out. Outside the South African embassy a group of MDC supporters had barricaded themselves inside the grounds, protesting that the election would never be free or fair. Television crews and photographers had gathered outside the fence. Feeling emboldened by the presence of media, I climbed from the car and took photographs openly.Only later did it seem perhaps unwise.
As we drove away Joseph kept glancing nervously into the rear-view mirror.
“I think we’re being followed.” A white Volkswagen Jetta lingered several cars behind us. “Turn right,” I suggested. The Jetta turned right too. We made several more random manoeuvres through Harare traffic. Each time the car eventually reappeared. Its windows were tinted so dark I couldn’t see who sat inside.
Then suddenly it vanished. Gone. That night I slept comfortably in the Meikles.
It would be my last comfortable night for quite some time.
Chapter 9
We went out early Monday morning photographing the first queues forming outside polling stations. People stood patiently in long silent lines. Many looked exhausted and defeated before the process had even begun.
Everyone already knew the likely outcome. For loyalists the election was simply ritual. For opposition supporters it felt largely pointless. By lunchtime we returned to the hotel. Reception informed me Helen had finally arrived and was asleep in her room.
I called upstairs. “I’m exhausted,” she mumbled. “Let’s meet for dinner tonight and discuss tomorrow. In the meantime head back out with the lads and see what you can find.” Then, before hanging up, she added: “Be vigilant.”
Those words turned out to be rather prophetic.
By late afternoon we were back in Mbare. As darkness approached the suburb took on a more sinister mood. Fires smouldered beside the roads. A few weak streetlights illuminated potholes and drifting rubbish.
The air had turned cold.
We approached the corner of Ardbennie Road and Adam Chiwida Avenue where, behind a low wall, stood a large white tent erected in an open field.
Joseph turned down a side track following the wall.
The angle wasn’t ideal for photographs, so I asked if we could move slightly further around. About a hundred yards ahead the wall bent sharply and an opening appeared where a gate had once stood. Then Joseph made the mistake.
Instead of stopping outside, he turned through the entrance and drove directly onto the property. I barely had time to react. A guard hidden behind the wall stood abruptly. My stomach dropped. Joseph looked panicked himself now.
“Hurry up,” he muttered. “Take your pictures.”
I shot four quick frames toward the tent. Then we turned around and headed back toward the entrance hoping the guard might simply watch us leave.
Unfortunately he had other ideas.
Chapter 10
The guard stepped directly into our path carrying his rifle.Joseph wound down the window and attempted a friendly greeting. The guard took one look at me in the back seat and his entire demeanour changed instantly from bored to frantic.
He pointed the rifle toward a squat brick outbuilding nearby and gestured violently for us to move. Joseph slowly reversed. At that exact moment I realized I had perhaps five seconds to save the photographs.
I pulled the flash card from my camera and jammed it deep into a crack behind the rear seat padding. Then I shoved a blank card into the camera and fired off three meaningless frames through the window.
A pathetic attempt at deception.We were ordered from the car and marched into the little brick structure. Inside it was pitch black and stank strongly of goat piss.
The guard shoved Joseph into one corner and ordered us to sit on the floor amongst damp straw and bare stone. He lit a kerosene lamp resting on a crooked table, unclipped handcuffs from his belt, then disappeared outside.
Moments later we heard metal clanging. We’d been cuffed in. “He’s gone to fetch his mates,” I laughed nervously. Neither Joseph nor Arthur looked remotely amused. In the dim lamplight I could barely see their faces against the soot-blackened walls. Only the whites of their eyes.
Arthur finally spoke. “The fewer involved in this arrest, the more chance we have of bribing our way out.” I nodded. “My thoughts exactly.”
Soon we heard vehicles arriving outside. Doors slammed. Boots crunched gravel.
Three more men entered carrying torches and speaking rapidly in Shona.
Joseph and Arthur were hauled outside while I remained seated under armed guard. Minutes later they returned carrying my camera. Naturally the first place they searched had been beneath the driver’s seat. We were lined against the wall while the men discussed our fate.
Three guards. Three prisoners. Only one side had guns.I remember wondering what being shot might actually feel like.
Someone once told me you never hear the bang if the bullet enters at point-blank range. Your brain simply ceases before registering the sound.
I can confirm I was not experiencing any great sense of spiritual calm as the guard raised his rifle toward us. We were handcuffed painfully tight and forced into crouching positions against the wall while the debate continued over our heads in rapid-fire Shona. Arthur and Joseph looked increasingly alarmed. I took slight comfort from one thing only. We were still alive.
Chapter 11
More vehicles arrived. This time one sounded like a truck. Six men eventually stood inside the hut.
The newcomers wore civilian clothes rather than uniforms, which somehow made them more intimidating. They lounged casually, smoked cigarettes and carried themselves with the quiet assurance of people accustomed to power.
Special Branch perhaps. Security police. Whatever they were, it became obvious immediately that our release would not involve a discreet roadside bribe and a handshake. We were marched outside and ordered onto the back of a flatbed truck.
The night air hit hard. None of us were dressed for sitting exposed in the back of an open vehicle during a Harare autumn evening.
As we rattled toward the city centre beneath fluorescent streetlights, people stared openly at us. A white man crouched handcuffed beside two Africans in the back of a police truck attracted attention.
Joseph muttered quietly: “Harare Central.” The police station looked exactly how one imagines authoritarian police stations should look. Large, stained, fluorescent-lit and deeply joyless. We were led through the rear entrance. Inside, various formalities followed. Name. Nationality. Occupation. Where was I staying?
Eventually I was separated from Arthur and Joseph and escorted into another office occupied by three men in civilian clothes smoking cigarettes.
One informed me they would be accompanying me back to the Meikles Hotel to search my room. Only then did I fully grasp the seriousness of the situation.
I was escorted into the Meikles lobby by five plain-clothed officers and one elegant woman who looked more diplomat than interrogator.
For a brief moment I considered shouting:
“Help! I’ve been kidnapped by Mugabe’s security apparatus!”
But given they were perfectly comfortable marching me through a five-star hotel in handcuffs, it seemed unlikely anyone intended intervening.
Reception handed over my room key without hesitation. Clearly everyone knew exactly who these people were. And everyone knew better than to interfere.
Then something happened straight from a film script. My key card failed.
One of the officers returned downstairs for a replacement while the rest of us stood awkwardly in the corridor. And then — appearing suddenly at the far end like some ghostly apparition — came Helen.
She was walking directly toward us. I realized instantly that if she greeted me normally, she too would likely disappear into the Zimbabwean security system.
I had perhaps two seconds to warn her. So I raised my cuffed hands theatrically and blurted loudly: “Well now that you’ve arrested me, perhaps you could tell me how long this is going to take?”
Helen froze.
Then, with extraordinary comic delicacy given the circumstances, she began tiptoeing backwards down the corridor trying not to make a sound.
Had the situation not been so serious I might have burst out laughing.
None of my captors turned around. By the time the replacement key arrived she had vanished. The room was thoroughly ransacked.
Laptop, hard drives, notebooks — everything disappeared into evidence bags.
Then I was marched back downstairs and bundled into another car.
At least now Helen knew. At least she was still free.
Unfortunately I had absolutely no idea what awaited me at Mbare police station. Had I known, I might well have soiled myself right there in the back seat.
(to be continued)
