”What sort of woman are you, Grace Kwinjeh? Who do you think you are? What are you trying to prove?”
These were the questions fired at me by a group of five baton-wielding riot police officers as they beat me up at Machipisa police station in Harare on March 11.
That was the first of many rounds.
I did not respond. I stood still and took each blow as it came. I did not cry or beg for mercy. None of the comrades in the police station that day cried or begged for mercy; none denounced the party or tried to negotiate themselves out of the horror.
Sekai Holland, a 64-year-old grandmother, was called a ”whore”, ”Blair’s whore”. ”No, I cannot be Blair’s whore, he is my son,” she said.
Sekai was ”danced on”. Danced on by another woman: ”Iri hure raBlair rinoda varungu [This Blair whore loves white men].” Sekai is married to a white Australian man.
She was severely assaulted that day. One of her legs, an arm and three ribs were broken. Her assailants did this to her, they said, because she is married to a white man and is a member of the opposition (the Movement for Democratic Change).
Neither were we, the two younger women, spared in this regard. The ” young whores”, according to the officers, had to be taught a lesson, so they went for our buttocks. ”Rovai mazigaro [Beat the big bums],” they shouted. My beret fell off. I was then beaten because my hair was blond. ”Hure reku Holiday Inn rovai [A Holiday Inn prostitute, beat her up].” I had dyed my hair blond in protest after the Registrar General, Tobaiwa Mudede, had denied me a travel document.
The attack on us women was on our sexuality. We were assaulted, humiliated and demeaned in a way that was different from the way they demeaned the men. With the men, the issue remained party political.
In the months before this, I have been in and out of jail on various dubious charges, mostly to do with organising and leading ”illegal” demonstrations. Once, I was placed in solitary confinement at Rhodesville police station for 48 hours.
As I sat there in that cell on my own, I was afraid — of being tortured, raped or killed. By the grace of God, I came out untouched. A female freedom fighter can be killed at any time.
In the early hours of March 12, the military police came for me at Braeside police station, where I had been dumped — by the first group of police — half dead the night before.
By then a search for me by family and friends was in full swing.
I was in a cell with two other women. One of them was nursing me and praying, as I was in pain and bleeding.
We heard the sound of cars outside, then footsteps, and then the jail door opened. The officer in charge, Makore, pointed at me and said ”uyu Kwinjeh” to four military intelligence officials. I held on to the two women; I knew I was in danger. Once again I was tortured by the officers. They said they had been given orders to kill and not to negotiate with civilians. Comrade Gift Tandare had by this time already been killed. I did not know this.
They asked me all sorts of questions as they beat me with short batons. Several times, I fainted. Each time, they revived me and then tortured me again. Eventually I was unable to stand. I remained seated while they beat the soles of my feet. How I got back to the cell I do not know. All I know is that my life was spared. Office-bearers from Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights found me the next day.
When I was admitted to hospital, — after a magistrate had ordered police to take us there — riot police stood guard over my hospital bed. After I left the Harare hospital, I was re-arrested while trying to leave the country to seek medical care in South Africa. I was forced back to a Harare hospital. Eventually, I left for South Africa with Holland, where we are receiving medical treatment.
I was not alone in my pain. There was solidarity from sisters and brothers. They gave of prayers, night dresses, cakes, books, fruit and water. I was grateful for this. Above all, I was grateful to those who chose to associate themselves with me when they visited us at the Avenues Clinic in full view of the police and operatives of the Central Intelligence Organisation.
In the words of Paolo Coelho, from The Zahir: ”I don’t regret the painful times; I bear my scars as if they were medals. I know that freedom has a high price, as high as that of slavery; the difference is that you pay with pleasure and a smile, even when that smile is dimmed by tears.”
The woman in me will fight on. Aluta continua.
Kwinjeh is the deputy secretary for international relations in the faction of the Movement for Democratic Change that is led by Morgan Tsvangirai