Redstate

By Steve in Tennessee Posted in Foreign Affairs — Comments (1) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

Words fail me when I think about this item from Peter Oborne in the Daily Mail. After the horrors detailed in the quote below and more reported in the item, when asked if she will still vote in the upcoming runoff to oust Mugabe, the young woman stated, "Oh, yes!" she said. "I would. I will vote with confidence."

How sweet is Liberty for those that have none, and how detestable for those of us that have it to take it for granted. With all our might and all our Liberty, how can we stand still and do nothing?

God help us.

I saw Memory in her hospital bed after she had been brought in from the bush more dead than alive a week ago last Monday, several days after her beating. She was lying on her front: it was obvious why.

Where her buttocks should have been was just a mess of raw flesh.

I watched as a blue-suited nurse removed one of the bandages.

Memory whimpered and moaned with pain. With me was a hardened welfare worker who had witnessed many terrible things.

She broke down in sobs. I must tell you that tears poured down my cheeks, too.

Memory was in far too much pain and shock to answer any questions.

I pressed her hand gently and left her.

The following day, I returned to the hospital and saw Memory's beautiful face and, since her pain was beginning to subside, heard her sweet, low voice for the first time.

She told me how on arrival at the school (which she had attended as a child), she had been ordered to sit in the playground with a group of supporters of Zimbabwe's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) - the opposition party led by Morgan Tsvangirai.

On the dot of 8am, the beatings started. Groups of eight people at a time were ordered out for treatment at the hands of a band of around 200 members of Robert Mugabe's militia, each wearing Zanu-PF T-shirts and green, red and yellow bandanas signifying the national flag.

Many of them were high on drink or drugs.

She watched as four of her close friends were beaten and kicked to death. A fifth friend later died, and others remain unaccounted for.

The militiamen chanted songs and spat insults at Morgan Tsvangirai as they did their work.

They told Memory, whose farmer husband was away: "You and your husband are MDC members so we must beat you.' They said that she belonged 'to a party of animals".

Memory told me how she could hear her children screaming "Mamma, Mamma, Mamma!" during her beating. They were held back by female members of Zanu-PF.