|
|
For Ms. Siyangapi's secret was not merely her own. Her appearance was also
testimony to one of the least documented — and most brutal — practices of the
military enforcers of
Her duties, however, were not political: during her nine-month stay in a
training camp and later at a paramilitary base, she said, she was raped almost
nightly, sometimes several times a night, by some of the hundreds of young male
conscripts there.
To the extent she had proof, she offered it to the crowd: a 6-month-old baby
girl named Nocthula, or Peace.
"At night, they removed the globes from the light sockets," Ms.
Siyangapi, 22, said in an interview at a hide-out in South Africa, to which she
fled after escaping Bulawayo in July. "Sometimes there were 10 boys. They
didn't leave until 3 a.m. If you cried, you were beaten."
Ms. Siyangapi is one of the few women to speak publicly about the prevalence
of rape and other sexual atrocities in the Zimbabwe military. But a growing
number of human rights groups have charged in recent months that forced sex and
sexual torture are routine elements of life for men and women alike in the
Youth Service, used as both a reward and a punishment.
In a report issued in September, the Solidarity Peace Trust, a faith-based
group of southern African human rights activists, accused the youth
paramilitary group of sanctioning "the rape, and multiple rape, of young
girls by boys undergoing training with them and by their military
instructors."
"The resulting pregnancies and infections with sexually transmitted
diseases, including H.I.V., not only devastate the lives of the youth concerned
but are creating a terrible legacy for the nation," the report stated.
Amnesty International documented cases of rape within the Youth Service in a
report released in April. The Amani Trust, perhaps the most active human rights
group currently in
Anthony P. Reeler, a former director of the trust who has been barred from
entering
"What's happening in the camps I would call forced concubinage,"
Mr. Reeler, now a human rights activist in
Still, the Amani Trust reported a rising incidence of sexual assault on
political opponents of
Mr. Reeler and others say politically driven assaults, opportunistic rape
and the sort of forced servitude experienced by women like Ms. Siyangapi
continue unabated.
In
"There's a big recruitment drive," in advance of the next
presidential election, in 2008, she said. "And right now, youngsters are
going voluntarily to these camps, for two reasons. One is that they have
nothing to do — they're bored out of their little skulls. And two, because
there's no food in their homes, their parents are not stopping them from going
because it's one less mouth to feed. That's the sad reality."
Ms. Williams, who said she knew Ms. Siyangapi, said her story was consistent
with that told by other women who have been enrolled in the youth militia,
widely called the Green Bombers after their olive-colored fatigues.
Mr. Mugabe's government cast the Green Bombers as a sort of domestic Peace
Corps when the militia's creation was announced in 2000.
The reality, say human rights observers and some Green Bombers who have fled
to
The enrollees, male and female alike, are said to range from as young as 11
years old to their early 30's. They are said to be generally ill-fed and poorly
trained, and they usually live in large dormitories.
The youths' major duty, they say, has been to smother support for the
Movement for Democratic Change, the rival of Mr. Mugabe's ZANU-PF party, by
terrorizing its leaders and their supporters, especially during elections. Mr.
Mugabe's disputed victory in Zimbabwe's 2002 presidential election has been
attributed in part to militias in at least 123 bases that discouraged voting by
supporters of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change.
In its September report, the Solidarity Peace Trust called the youth militia
"one of the most commonly reported violators of human rights" in
Zimbabwe.
The Green Bombers' camps are tightly protected, and there is little
firsthand information about activities there. In a two-hour interview at a safe
house several hours outside Johannesburg, Ms. Siyangapi said she was released
from captivity by militia commanders in July 2002 because she was pregnant. She
gave birth to a girl that September and fled Zimbabwe after intelligence
operatives heard her describe her experience to witnesses at the Anglican
church service in Bulawayo.
Ms. Siyangapi and the human rights advocates sheltering her, who refused to
be identified for fear of reprisals, contend that she is in danger from
operatives of Zimbabwe's Central Intelligence Organization, the domestic
security agency.
Ms. Siyangapi said she had been forced into the militia after a group of
youths beat her, then threatened to burn down her house unless she joined them.
Her description of militia life mirrored that of the others who fled: a boot
camp marked by endurance runs, push-ups and beatings; a sporadic diet of horse
meat and ground corn; indoctrination with hundreds of others in pro-government
songs; and widespread drunkenness.
During much of her time in the militia, Ms. Siyangapi said, she was raped
virtually nightly by at least one of 50 paramilitary soldiers who were
favorites of the camp's leader. After one unsuccessful attempt to escape in
April 2002, she said, she was ordered to dig a hole. Paramilitary soldiers
buried her up to her neck, she said, and left her there for a day.
After she left the Green Bombers in the summer of 2002, seven months
pregnant, Ms. Siyangapi said, she learned from her doctor that she was infected
with H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS. Now on antiretroviral drugs, she
appeared healthy in a recent interview, but said that she did not yet know
whether her daughter was also infected.
Asked whether she enjoyed life with her daughter, Ms. Siyangapi replied,
"Sometimes." Asked how she felt about her experience, she said simply
and without expression, "I am angry."