Living in a state of terror

THERE has been a row during the last fortnight about whether the government should ban the English cricket team from travelling to Zimbabwe for next month’s World Cup. But the cricket has obscured the real issue. And that is whether Britain and the world community will intervene to stop Robert Mugabe from torturing, terrorising and starving to death the people of Zimbabwe.

I spent two weeks in this beautiful country shortly before Christmas, making a film for Channel 4. We travelled illegally. Dr Mugabe does not want the world to know what he is up to, so he has banned foreign journalists. We posed as golfers, using secret cameras.

We learnt that the famine that looms for eight million Zimbabwean citizens – more than half the population – is no natural disaster. There is indeed a drought. But Mugabe, in an act of pure evil, has taken advantage of this for his own loathsome purposes. Elderly and unpopular, he has one weapon left in his battle to hang on to power: the ability to use the power of the state to starve and terrorise.

Everyone we met had been physically attacked by Mugabe’s Zanu-PF ruling party at some stage. The guide who took us round had a recent scar on his face. We asked him how he had come by it. He explained that he had been canvassing in a rural area before the assembly elections of 2000. One night he and his friends were sleeping in huts outside a village. They were petrol-bombed, so they ran for their lives to escape. But outside Zanu-PF were waiting. He was tripped up. As he fell to the ground he turned his head. It was as well that he did: his assailant was bringing down an iron bar on to the back of his head.