- Hundreds of girls as young as 12 are being raped or forcibly
kept as concubines in rural Zimbabwe by President Robert Mugabe's youth
militia as part of a campaign that human-rights lawyers have branded "systematic
political cleansing" of the population.
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- "They are raping on a massive scale," said
Frances Lovemore, a counsellor at the Harare-based Amani Trust which monitors
torture. "Girls as young as 12 or 13 are being systematically taken
and used and abused because of their families' political views."
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- The organisation is compiling video evidence that it
hopes to use to help to bring Mr Mugabe to trial at the international court
of human rights. An investigation by The Telegraph found that rape camps
had been set up for youth militia and riot police in rural areas.
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- Victims living in hiding related how they had been gang-raped
by police and self-styled war veterans, and had their genitals burnt with
iron rods. They said that they had been abused in revenge for their parents
not supporting Mr Mugabe, 78, in the presidential poll in March.
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- Other opponents of the government were badly beaten.
As a final indignity, in a land where half the population is on the verge
of starvation, victims claimed that militia members often urinated on the
family food.
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- A former militia member recounted how he and others were
instructed to attack wives and daughters of opposition sympathisers.
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- Human rights activists believe that this is part of a
programme to drive out, kill or terrify into submission all those who oppose
the president. Didymus Mutasa, the of Mr Mugabe's ruling Zanu-PF, has even
spoken of halving the population to six million.
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- Details of the violence have emerged as world attention
focuses on Mr Mugabe's campaign to evict white farmers while famine threatens.
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- Critics say the land reform programme is a cover for
his war on opposition. "This isn't about race or land, it's about
a political tyrant who wants to kill, break down and cripple all opposition,"
said Roy Bennett, a farmer who is an MP in Manicaland, eastern Zimbabwe,
for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change.
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- http://www.news.telegraph.co.uk
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