| The Unleashing of Violence: A report on violence in Zimbabwe as at May 15, 2000 |
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Contents « » Section A Killing of Olds The Dunn murder Assault on Iain Kay and killing of police officer Assaults on Gerald Smith, Tim Swanson and Adrian Herud The fatal shooting of Weeks Farm manager taken hostage, Rape of two white women Abduction of foreman, beating of farm labourers and burning of tobacco barns Assaults on farm labourers on Dimon Farm, Mount Darwin Attacks upon farm workers in Hwedza area Attacks on farm workers Burning of workers’ housing Incidents on Farms Killing of Stevens and his farm manager and beating of other farmers TOP Mr David Stevens was killed on Saturday 17 April 2000. War veterans, some wearing Zanu PF tee shirts, forcibly took him away from his farm. This farm, Arizona Farm, is situated in the Virginia commercial farming area of Macheke, which is about 75 miles east of Harare. Stevens was taken to Murehwa. From there he was taken in a vehicle to a place south west of Murehwa where war veterans brutally assaulted him and then executed him by shooting him twice. The police stated that he had been shot once between the eyes and once between the shoulders. (Another version was that he was shot twice in the head.) At the time this report was compiled the police had not arrested anyone in connection with this murder. At the same time that Stevens was abducted, his farm manager, Julius Andoche, was also abducted and he was also killed. His body was recovered about a week later. Stevens was a key organising member of the MDC in his farming
area. The report in the Daily News gives two versions of the events leading up to the shooting. The first version is by the Vice President of the Commercial Farmers Union, Richard Amyot. Stevens and his farm workers resisted war veterans’ encroachment earlier that day. He said that the incensed veterans then took Stevens, together with five other white farmers to Murehwa Growth Point. This version implies that there had been some further encroachment by war veterans on the farm. This version does not describe what form the resistance took. The second version is that of the same police spokesman quoted in The Herald. This version was that Stevens, armed with a weapon, had mobilised his workers and decided to evict 35 war veterans who had invaded his farm. From the resulting assault war veterans were injured. When they heard of incident, war veterans in Murehwa went to Macheke, picked up Stevens and brought him to Murehwa. The Herald quoted a police spokesman as saying that: Events leading to his death started around 6 a m on Saturday when he armed himself with a gun and instructed his workers to arm themselves as well. They allegedly attacked and injured 14 of the 35 war veterans, who have been occupying the farm since February, using spears, hoes, sticks and stones, according to war veterans on the farm. Seven of the injured war veterans were taken to Marondera Hospital while five were taken to Murerhwa Hospital. Two are missing. When word of the attack filtered through to other war veterans occupying neighbouring farms, they went to the farm to retaliate. The workers fled to nearby mountains while Mr Stevens was taken to a police station in Murehwa by the war veterans, who later took him hostage and assaulted him, together with five other farmers who had given chase after Mr Stevens was abducted. The five – Mr Steve Krynauw, Mr Gary Luke, Mr John Osborne, Mr Stuart Gemmill and Mr Ian Hardy, were also assaulted. Mr Hardy and Mr Gemmill were rescued yesterday after they were found by herd boys in a cave in Murerhwa and taken to hospital. Mr Krynauw, Mr Luke and Mr Osborne managed to escape and are at Borradaile Hospital in Marondera. Mr Krynauw was transferred to a Harare hospital yesterday. The Herald story continues as follows: When The Herald visited Arizona Farm yesterday afternoon it was deserted, save for a group of war veterans staying on the farm. "We are also in the dark as to how he was killed because we are hearing the news from you," said a spokesman for the war veterans, Cde Herbert Goso. He said Mr Stevens’ wife and their four children had left the farm after his abduction. Cde Goso said the attack took the war veterans by surprise as they had been staying peacefully since they occupied the farm in February. "Stevens actually gave us shelter and we were taken by surprise yesterday (Saturday) morning when his workers attacked us. In response to this version of the story, the widow of the deceased maintained that information had been "manufactured to distort the actual events leading up to the death" of her husband. She said that they only had two rusty guns that were used by workers to kill baboons. They had never threatened war veterans. They had peacefully accommodated them when they arrived and no one had ever provoked them. Her husband had given them firewood and had agreed on where they could establish themselves. She said that the problem had started after the rape or physical harassment of a farm worker’s daughter. When the brother of the woman interceded in this matter, the war veterans assaulted him. Other farm workers then came to his aid and drove the war veterans off. Her husband did not sanction this violence or the removal of the war veterans. The Director of the CFU also confirmed that Stevens did not have a weapon on the day he died as reported in The Herald. One of the assaulted farmers, John Osborne related what happened to the BBC on 16 April as follows: We received a call for assistance from Stevens, a neighbour. A chap who is a police liaison and Osborne went to Stevens place. As we turned off the main dirt road into his farm road, three vehicles came out. The middle vehicle was Stevens’ Landrover. He was in the passenger side. He was handcuffed. These guys are not playing, they are deadly serious and they are out of control. We thought we better follow him, and see where they were taking him. So we followed them all the way into Murehwa business centre. We lost sight of the bus going near Murehwa but once we got to Murehwa, apparently it’s the war veterans building or compound or whatever- these guys came swarming out, so we shot down the road, turned around and hoofed it back through Murehwa. As we went through, this first vehicle in the convoy of three vehicles came after us, let off a round in the middle of Murehwa, and it was trying to catch us, and we decided to turn into the police station. As we did they let off another round at us. Then we went into the police station thinking we would be safe there- there must have been 15 or 20 police cars (?) on duty. We went into the courtyard in the police camp. Within a very short time there were quite a few – call them war vets - some of them too young to be war vets – pitched up and they just marched into the police station. The police just stood by, the guys came into the police station with the weapon, they handcuffed all three of us, then took us to the war veterans’ headquarters, which was the same building we had seen them going into. I was the first one pulled out of the vehicle and I was given quite a good beating. I was then thrown into a room out the back and there I saw Dave Stevens. We were locked up in this room, both of us were handcuffed. We were knocked about a bit, then they put Dave and myself into the private sedan car, the one that had chased us and shot at us. They drove through Murehwa up to a dirt road, and they drove I would guess about 2 km off this road, then they dragged us out of the car and abused us, beat us around, and then one of the woman said she recognised me, and that I shouldn’t be hurt because we’ve helped out our communal neighbours quite a bit. And there was another young guy who said the same thing. And so they threw me into the car, and they beat Dave very badly and then shot him. I was then taken back to one of the Murehwa people’s home, nothing to do with this particular scene, it’s just a senior guy there, a well-respected family. They looked after me until we could organise transport to get me through here to Marondera. I was beaten soon after my capture and I lost my glasses and I didn’t see very much. I would say that in the war vets’ compound there were between 80 and 100 people maybe. The only two weapons I saw clearly were a 303 rifle and a shotgun. Following this incident about thirty commercial farmers fled their farms in Mashonaland East Province and had moved to nearby Marondera and Harare in fear of their lives. TOP |