|
Posted on 03/14/2003 4:00:11 PM PST by blam
Mugabe's boy militia flee after murders
By Basildon Peta Southern Africa Correspondent
15 March 2003
Hundreds of President Robert Mugabe's notorious youth militia – nicknamed the "Green Bombers" – are fleeing to South Africa because they say they are tired of "killing for nothing" and are being starved.
Fourteen boys and men aged between 15 and 28 have provided testimonies about life in the youth wing of Zanu-PF, Zimbabwe's ruling party, to The Sunday Independent newspaper in South Africa. They say they were taught how to kill people in ways that "would be quick and silent and leave no evidence".
They did not previously know each other and came from different youth militia training camps, many of which were based at secondary schools. Most of them fled in December and January, some swimming the Limpopo river, and risking its crocodiles, to get to South Africa.
One former militia member said he fled Zimbabwe after being forced to take part in the murder of his uncle, a supporter of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Another said he fled after being instructed to murder his father, an MDC supporter. A third militiaman said he was involved in the murder of an MDC party chairman.
One youth said: "We jumped on to a goods train, then before it reached the border we got off. We went across a low point in the river and through a fence; we wandered around the bush for five days; we only had water, there was no food. We started off as five but lost some because they became too hungry and weak to continue."
The Sunday Independent said it was withholding the real names of the escapers to protect their families in Zimbabwe.
The arrival in South Africa of the former Green Bombers has been confirmed by civic organisations which have reported large numbers of boys and young men seeking asylum
These murderers are upset ONLY because they aren't getting paid and fed? How much money and food would it take to keep them doing their filthy work?
Mugabe will have a very long eternity.
In New York.
(They need to be in Zimbabwe, of course.)
That is a great idea but hell would freeze colder than Antartica first. The last place jokes like Kofi Annan and friends would want to be located is in the hell holes they pretend not to notice while supporting the dictators.
In order to escape, these young people have to risk the crocs to get into South Africa where they risk being sent home to be bruatally punished.
Unlike the "war veterans" who are young party cadre, thugs pretending to be engaged in a "Third Chimurenga" or "hondo yenzara", the Green Bombers are draftees into a vile form of National Service. (the "second Chimurenga" ended in 1980 with Mugabe taking power. Most of the "war veterans are in their late teens or early twenties)
Note that the "war veterans" are not leaving Zim. They are the people who mounted the farm invasions and who are equivalent to Hitler's SturmAbteilung.
The Green Bombers who take a liking to what they are initially forced to do will becone indistinguishable from the "war veterans".
If the "war veterans" had any appreciation for history, they would realize that the sturmabteilung eventually became inconvenient to Hitler and had become individually too dangerous to survive, so they were purged by a more effective set of monsters, the SchutzStaffel. Perhaps if Mugabe continues to thrive the "war veterans" might find themselves pruged by a new organization, perhaps recruited from soldiers returned from the DRC campaign.
|
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
