The revenge of the dead

How 20 murder victims, killed six years ago, have returned to haunt Mugabe

This is an unpleasant and disturbing story. If you have a sensitive nature you might be well advised to skip it. It concerns the unidentified corpses of 20 murder victims which have lain, unknown and unclaimed, on the slabs of a Zimbabwe mortuary for six years.

The slain are believed to have met their fate at the hands of the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) during the 2002 election. Today frantic efforts are being made to get them buried before they become a scandalous issue in the current election.

I have spent some days investigating this story, and these are the facts as I have been told them:

The victims were all supporters of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), Zimbabwe's official opposition, and were from the Lupane district. After the murders, and to cover their tracks, the CIO had the bodies transferred to neighbouring Nyaki, where they were dumped in the local morgue.

And there they remained. In Zimbabwe any burial requires an order from the police, who cannot issue the order before investigating the death. But the Nyaki police were reluctant to begin inquiries, partly because of the scale of the task, and partly because they feared they would put themselves in danger.

The bodies might have stayed in the mortuary for ever, if it wasn't for the national fuel shortage. This has led, as we all know, to widespread and lengthy power cuts. Refrigeration has failed. And those 20 bodies are now in an advanced state of decomposition. The morgue is part of the hospital complex, and near Nkayi business centre. Enough said.

For this and other reasons, Nkayi Rural District Council, who are responsible for the morgue, have finally lost patience. They have written to the appropriate ministries demanding explanations and action.

And as a result, the Provincial Medical Director for Matabeleland North, Dr. Irene Ndiweni, has been spending days at Nkayi lately, cobbling together the necessary paperwork to get the bodies buried, and thereby forgotten.

By the time you read this she may have succeeded, certainly in getting the corpses underground. The human stench may be gone. But the stench of violence, corruption and murder from an election six years ago will remain. And it will hang over this election in a thick and noxious cloud.

Comments

[Mandla]

This is bad, the perpetrators should brought to book. We hope it does not happen again this year

[Benjamin]

Good people, the name of the place is Nkayi, not Nyaki. Otherwise thanks for keeping us informed

[amos]

am from Nkayi. the whole community is shocked with the goings on there.
the CIO own the bodies, they know perfectly well who is who among the dead, their sin to be killed.
now we here the are goi g to be granted a paupers burial. how sad.
the police say most of the bodies are stillborn children, am not a doctor but how can a stillborn be as a big as grown up. please CIO chaps give us answers

[Verne]

Yes it was a very bad period for us all