A few minutes, I think, before we got to the destination, I saw them indicating to each other. They hardly spoke; I think a lot of the communication was through their eyes. And then the guy on whose lap I slept then picked something from the floor, and that something was woolen, and what he did was to blindfold me. And initially, he had covered my nose and my mouth as well, and I indicated that I couldn’t breathe, and he moved it a bit just to close my – just to close my eyes.
And then within a few minutes the car came to a halt, and I was led out of the vehicle into a room that was immediately locked. And after a while, another woman approached with a dress and plastic shoes. And initially, I resisted putting those things on, but she then said, if I knew what was good for me, I would take that offer. So I then put on the dress and I put on the shoes, because she spoke something about the toilet, and so I wasn’t sure what to expect in the toilet, so I put on the plastic shoes. And after a while I was then led out of this room, blindfolded, into another room where I was greeted by a group of six men when the blindfold was removed, and one woman, who immediately started interrogating me, asking me about the work that my organization did, which I explained, but they insisted that what I was telling them was the constitutional role of the organization, and what they wanted to get was the unconstitutional role of the organization, and I was not aware of what they were talking about.
They also asked about my board members. And the interrogation changed when they started talking to me about the people that I was working with in the opposition Movement for Democratic Change led by Morgan Tsvangirai. And I told them that the people that I know from that party are probably the people that they also know because they are always in the news, and they thought I was being rude. And one of the men walked out and came back with two rolls, truncheons that they were going to use in the torture. One of them was like a hose, which was half a meter long, and the other one I think it had wire inside, and then it had rubber tied onto it; it was the most painful. And I was sitting on the floor, and I was asked to remove the plastic shoes. I removed the shoes, and the beating on the soles of my feet started.
There were two men who alternated to do that. And then after a while the woman then said to the men, can you all leave? The men all left. And she then offered me a panty. And initially, I thought, how do I know that it is new? Because it wasn’t in a packet or anything. But she insisted that I put it on. And I think she knew what was going to come immediately after. And so I put on that panty. And then when the men came in, one of them then said, while I sat on the floor, I had to raise my feet up to a desk, I think a desk that high. And the beating on the soles of my feet continued. And I then realized that it was really important for me to put on a panty. I was wearing a nylon nightdress. And obviously, when my feet went up, it meant that the nightdress would pull down and expose my thighs. And one of the men actually said, we’re not worried about your – about your legs. Can you just put up those legs up there? And that beating continued. Initially, I think I must have screamed once or twice.
But later on, I said to myself, I was not going to give them the satisfaction that they have won this. And I decided that I was going to hold on to the pain as they went on to thrash me. And that continued throughout the day until quite late at night. I’m not sure what time it was, but there was a time that they left, and when they came back, they all came back drunk – not that I suspected that they were drunk; they all came back holding bottles of beer, including the woman. And the beating continued even as they were in that state of drunkenness. And one of them actually bragged and said that their boss recognized how important this assignment was, and this is why he has given them money before their payday for them to be able to have some drinks. And when they left at night, I now had to deal with all the thoughts that were crowding my mind. First it was the thought of having left my son and a six-year-old nephew just in with the domestic helpers. I had a brother who lived a few houses away; I knew probably he could have taken my son, but he was too close to where I stayed. And my fear was, probably if the helpers were assaulted, probably they would also say where my son was. And I kept on fighting lumps that were coming to my throat as I was trying to process all this information.
Jestina M. Mukoko is the National Director of the Zimbabwe Peace Project, a nonprofit organization that monitors and documents political violence in Zimbabwe. As Zimbabwe’s premier monitoring body, the organization maintains a strong network throughout the country that is able to bring widespread attention to occurrences of political violence.
A long-time leader in the human rights and activist communities in Zimbabwe, Ms. Mukoko was abducted from her home on December 3, 2008, by state security agents for her work monitoring the brutality of the Robert Mugabe government. During her 21-day abduction, she was tortured, beaten, and forced to confess to a crime she did not commit. She remained detained until a court granted her bail on March 2, 2009.
For her steadfastness on issues related to human rights, Jestina Mukoko was named the 2009 Laureate of the City of Weimar (Germany) Human Rights Prize and a 2010 recipient of the U.S. Secretary of State’s International Women of Courage Award. In 2009, Ms. Mukoko was awarded the NANGO (National Association of Nongovernmental Organizations) Peace Award. For her commitment and perseverance, she received the French National Order of the Legion of Honor award in 2011.
She serves on several boards, including those of the Zimbabwe Election Support Network, the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum, and the Institute for a Democratic Alternative for Zimbabwe. A former news anchor for the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation, she is also mentoring with the Female Students Network, a youth organization.
A peace and human rights campaigner, Jestina Mukoko is also a mother. She holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Politics and Administration from the University of Zimbabwe. Ms. Mukoko was the 2010 Fellow at the Oak Institute for International Human Rights at Colby College in Maine. In 2012, she joined other mid-career professionals as a Draper Hills Summer Fellow on Democracy and Development Program at Stanford University.
Mugabe’s social and economic policies have been disastrous. An estimated one-fifth of the population is infected with HIV. Life expectancy has declined dramatically since 1990. Land redistribution in the 1990s cut food production and led to hunger and disease. The government’s mismanagement of the economy led to hyperinflation in the 2000s, reaching an estimated peak of 13 billion percent in November 2008.
Mugabe has stifled democracy and human rights since coming to power. The government cracks down on opposition political parties and civil society groups. Basic rights such as freedom of expression and assembly are not respected. Violence surrounding the 2008 elections led to a power-sharing agreement between ZANU and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. Freedom House rates Zimbabwe as not free in political rights and civil liberties, noting Mugabe’s frequent abuses of power, corruption, regime-sponsored political violence, the lack of independent media, and flawed electoral processes.