White man Wake Up!

Original Post Date: 2001-08-25  Posted By: Jan

From the News Archives of: WWW.AfricanCrisis.Org
Date & Time Posted: 8/25/2001 8:36:05 PM
White man Wake Up!

> TORTURE BY FIRE — ZIMBABWEANS AND SOUTH AFRICANS
> EXPERIENCE
> HAUNTINGLY SIMILAR HORRORS UNDER PRESENT REGIMES
>
> I am forwarding herewith an email from ZIMBABWEAN FARMER
> CATHY BUCKLE,
> (author of book “African Tears” ) (see:
> http://www.censorbugbear.com,
> click on Zimbabwe page) who writes the following in her weekly
> update
> about the situation in Zimbabwe:
>
> a) She reports contents of a torture report released by the Zimbabwe
> Human Rights Forum; b) and about the desperate condition in which
> Zimbabwe now finds itself: as she describes it: “The ‘war veterans. who
> are still beating, burning, raping and torturing Zimbabweans have led
us
> to the edge of starvation.”
>
> Torture by fire:
> This week’s diary, which Cathy Buckle (who with her entire family once
> had been an ardent supporter of Mugabe’s freedom struggle, but now is
in
> hiding in Harare after publishing her book), distributes to friends as
> well as to the Censorbugbear web publication each week, and is
> headlined: “Burning plastic” .
>
> “Burning plastic” is one of the torture practices described by the
> Zimbabwe Human Rights Forum as being carried out by the Mugabe
> regime’s stooges — namely to wrap their victims in plastic and
> torturing them by setting fire to the plastic, or dripping burning
> plastic on them.
>
> Coincidentially, this “burning plastic torture” just happens to also
be
> one of the most prevalent torture practices most frequently seen among
> the more than 6,000 attacks against commercial farmers in neighbouring
> South Africa during the ANC regime’s rule.
>
> Many of the victims of these South African attacks had also been
> tortured by fire: by burning them with electric appliance, by a
> branding iron or with hot ashes, but most especially by wrapping them
in
> plastic bags and setting fire to these.
>
> The latest South African victim of such a “burning torture” had been
> recorded by the police only last weekend during the attack on the Le
> Grange farm in South Africa, where one of the three female victims (the
> other had been a four-year-old girl) had been tortured with a burning
> iron. In fact the victim, who survived her ordeal, even displayed such
> torture marks in the news photograph taken with her little
four-year-old
> granddaughter on the Censorbugbear.com site. (Click on the front page
> link to “pictures of farm murders”) to see the picture, published in
> “Beeld” newspaper, of Mrs Le Grange and her grandchild.).
>
> Of course the South African office of the UN Human Rights Commission,
> when confronted with the torture of this little four-year-old farm girl
> this week in an email from Gerhard Erasmus, a South African living in
> Bern, Switserland (who can confirm this: tel (41) 1865-4523), replied
in
> their email to him that he should:
>
> (a) learn how to spell
> (b) stop whinging and
> (c) that YOU PEOPLE HAVE HAD IT GOOD FOR TOO LONG.”
>
> The breathtaking callousness of such a reply, — especially coming
> from by email sent by the UN’s Human Rights Commission in Pretoria —
> really brings home the reality that no Afrikaners can expect any mercy
> in either South Africa nor Zimbabwe. May I point out that close to
> 4-million Afrikaners still live in three Southern African countries,
> namely Zimbabwe, Namibia and South Africa — and that they as an
ethnic
> minority are clearly greatly endangered by the possibility of an ethnic
> cleansing campaign. In fact one of their own parliamentary leaders, Dr
> Pieter Mulder of the Freedom Party, sounded this warning two weeks ago
> when he handed a petition to the UN’s Human Rights Commissioner in
> Pretoria. The same office which a week later sent that email to Mr.
> Erasmus, that’s right, the one which said that he should stop whinging
> and that concluded with: “You people have had it good for too long”.
>
> The fact that Afrikaners’ human rights are being constantly infringed
> upon throughout the Southern African region, is is fact is being
> underlined by the unfortunate Zimbabwean farmer Philip Bezuidenhout —
> who was accused by the Mugabe regime of murdering a farm invader on his
> farm, whose entire family was targetted by Mugabe’s thugs, and who has
> protested in the news media that the killed man — (a 31-year-old
> accountant with a home in Harare who had nevertheless staked out a
claim
> as a “poor landless war veteran”on Bezuidenhout’s farm Tara) —
> had been the victim of a highly unfortunate traffic accident, that he
> had never intended to run him down, but had simply not seen him
> because his vision had been blocked by a large fuel truck.
>
> Bezuidenhout — a direct descendant of the large group of
> voortrekker-Boer families who had arrived in that region with the
> Bezuidenhout Trek of 1842-46 — is still sitting in jail three weeks
> later. He has not been granted even the right to ask for bail; his
> lawyer was banned by police from seeing him during his brief court
> remand, and Bezuidenhout was being dragged into the courtroom in heavy
> chains and handcuffs. Clearly, such accused Afrikaners have no human
> rights in any African country today.
>
> Burning torture – the necklace:
> Of course the most famous form of “burning torture” was thought up
> during the South African struggle — and this resulted in the most
> horrendously painful death, namely the torture made so infamous
> worldwide by Winnie Mandela’s “burning matches and tyres” statement
> which glorified this terrible practice, namely the “necklace” torture
> death. This was the favoured form of torture for its perceived
political
> enemies chosen by the African National Congress during their freedom
> struggle.
>
> This torture was specifically used against perceived ANC “sell-outs”
or
> “police stooges”, unfortunate victims who were referred to by the ANC
as
> “impimpi”. (pimps, sellouts).
>
> The “necklace” was a outer car tyre, placed about the victim’s neck,
> filled with petrol and set alight. The South African Truth and
> Reconciliation Commission recorded that a great many of these
atrocities
> had been committed by ANC “cadres” during the “struggle” — but in fact
> reports of deaths through necklacing are still found in modern South
> African police records today, mostly the victims were perceived as
> “witches” who had somehow “bewitched” people.
>
> This practice of burning “witches” is however an old African
> tradition, also frequently used by African chiefs to rid themselves of
> their political opponents: this practice was already placed on the
> history record back in 1854 in a book about his first-hand experiences
> with the African slave trade by sea Captain Theodore Canot, a mulatto
> who traded gold, ivory and slaves on the coast of Guinea during most of
> his spotted career.
>
> He wrote the book in 1854 and described this practice of seeing the
> burning of “witches” in great detail — his description was hauntingly
> similar to “necklacing” today: the accused witches had large circles
> of thickly pleated grass placed about their necks, which “grass
> necklaces” were then set alight. Canot also noted that witchcraft was
> often used by all the African tribal chiefs along the West Coast of
> Africa to sell off their own kinfolk, often people who owed them
> tributes, and whose own tribal chiefs traded them to Arabian
> slavetraders as so-called “quaffirs” (the Arab word for unbelievers:
> people who did not practice the Islamic faith). Selling accused witches
> into slavery was therefore considered more humane than the usual
> alternative.
>
> I just thought it prudent to place it on record that this
> time-honoured African practice of “torturing enemies by fire” is still
> being kept alive throughout Southern Africa even today, twenty years
> after the end of Zimbabwe’s struggle for independence, and ten years
> after the end of South Africa’s struggle for independence.
>
> The Zimbabwe Human Rights forum described it being used by the Mugabe
> regime for torturing political opponents — and in South Africa the
> police often record this practice as being carried out by those truly
> mysterious attackers against commercial farm families. The Afrikaner
> farmers especially, often are tortured by fire for hours before they
are
> killed by their attackers. However, the South African regime still
> insists that these farm attacks merely have “robbery” as motives.
>
> =======================================================
>
> FOLLOWING IS CATHY BUCKLE’S EMAIL:
> ======================================================================
> ============ —– Original Message —– From: “I.Buckle”
> Sent: Saturday, August 04, 2001 5:01 PM Subject:
> Fw: Burning plastic
>
> > : Burning plastic
> > Date: 04 August 2001 11:46
> >
> > Dear family and friends,
> > I sat up until a little before midnight last night reading the 46
page
> > document just released by the Zimbabwe Human Rights Forum and this
> > morning I am still in deep shock. In a tip of the iceberg report the
> > ZHR Forum gives details of human rights abuses committed in Zimbabwe
> > just prior to last years election. It gives personal statements,
> > names, places and the most horrific details of torture,murder and
> > rape. It tells of torture centres and re-education camps, of locked
> > rooms with barred windows. It names both the victims and the
> > perpetrators and many of the latter are men now sitting in our
> > Paliament As I sit here on this beautiful spring morning in Zimbabwe,
> > I cannot believe the horrors that have gone on, and are still going
on
> > in the name of land re-distribution. The 77 cases reported in the
> > document are not of whites or of farmers but of the ordinary men and
> > women of Zimbabwe who have dared to stand up for their belief in
> > democracy, who have dared to suggest that they no longer want to be
> > ruled by a one party state. Please do not allow your children to read
> > this one excerpt below, please do bring it to the attention of your
> > parliamentarian. “…3rd June 2000… They made us lie down. They
took
> > ropes and tied our hands and legs and they started assaulting us.
They
> > were beating us with sjamboks. At around 7.00pm, they took us to
their
> > base at Texas farm. They made a fire and began assaulting us using
> > fire. First it was my friend BM. They tied plastic around his hands
> > and legs and then lit it. Next it was my turn. They beat me first.
> > Then they used all the same tactics, wrapping my legs, hands and
> > private parts and lighting the plastics. They also lit some plastic
> > and then dropped it on us as it melted. They were taking hot ashes
and
> > spreading them on my body. … I have burns all over my back, front,
> > buttocks, private parts, thighs and legs …” This is just one
> > statement from 46 pages. Others tell of horrific sexual abuses, of
> > the use of electricity and water, of whips and batons, bicycle chains
> > and iron bars used to inflict beatings on people suspected of not
> > supporting the ruling party. These abominations must be exposed, the
> > perpetrators must be brought to justice. The countries still giving
> > money to Zimbabwe must STOP now because the pennies you drop into a
> > collection box are being used by our government for violence and
> > torture and not for land redistribution. The people committing these
> > crimes are not in goals, they are still out there, still being paid
to
> > kill and maim us. I know that if you are white and speak out you are
> > called a racist and if you are from outside Africa you are called a
> > colonialist. We know different though. These abominations are being
> > committed by black people against black, white, yellow and brown
> > people. If we do not find a way of exposing these horrors now,
> > thousands and thousands more people will be raped, burned, tortured
> > and murdered in the next few months as we stagger towards elections
> > again. This week particularly I have questioned my place and my role
> > in this country. I had a couple of frightening encounters with our
> > local police, police who are not policemen at all but war veterans
> > who wear the uniforms and sit at the desks of the officials over whom
> > they have complete control. My determination has wavered but then I
> > turn in my chair and look at the collage of family photos that sits
on
> > my wall. My mother, father and stepfather all fought for freedom and
> > democracy in Zimbabwe twenty years ago. They gave me these feelings
of
> > patriotism, these beliefs in right and wrong, they taught me to stand
> > up for what is right. As I write three children are lying on the
> > carpet watching cartoons, one is white, two are black. It starts
> > there, racial harmony, goodness and honesty, morals and principles
all
> > start there. They do not notice that their skins have different hues,
> > they are children together and every Zimbabwean owes it to them to
> > fight this evil. If you are an ex Zimbabwean in another country now,
> > you too owe it to these children, our future parliamentarians to
speak
> > out. If you are reading this from the comfort of your walled and
gated
> > Harare home you too must open your eyes, you too must read these 46
> > pages of the hell that has engulfed us. The ‘war veterans’ who are
> > still beating, burning, raping and torturing Zimbabweans have led us
> > to the edge of starvation. This week the Commercial Farmers Union
held
> > its annual congress and told us the cold hard facts of the situation
> > we are now looking at thanks to the politicians who are so desperate
> > to stay in power. The farmers have been as powerless as the people
who
> > had burning plastic draped around their testicles. I quote from Tim
> > Henwood’s address: “…maize production was set to drop to less than
> > half of the previous crop. …the shrinkage in cotton production has
> > declined from 400 thousand to 282 thousand tonnes. .. the coffee
> > industry has seriously declined…tobacco production was down by 15
to
> > 20%…the wheat crop yield was expected to be 250 thousand tonnes,
> > lower than the required 550 thousand tonnes… the beef industry is
> > facing a serious challenge as farmers liquidate their herds… 160
out
> > of 225 dairy farms have been listed for compulsory acquisition… the
> > wildlife industry continues to be raped……” What the ruling party
> > have called a peaceful demonstration in the name of land
> > re-distribution will leave us with serious shortages of dairy
produce,
> > bread and maize, fruit and coffee, meat and milk. War veterans have
> > removed almost all ur means of earning freign currency as they have
> > swept over farms that grow all our export crops – tobacco and
flowers,
> > game and safaris. This week the FAO announced the top 3 African
> > countires facing starvation in 2001/2, they were Sudan, Somalia and
> > Zimbabwe. The ravages in Zimbabwe have affected us all, rich and
poor,
> > black and white, educated and illiterate. In one way or another we
> > have all had burning plastic dripped onto our backs. As Zimbabweans
we
> > are completely powerless and helpless. The ruling party have
> > infiltrated the police and the army, the civil service and the
> > municipalities. We will not survive this without outside
intervention.
> > I know that YOU can help. With much love and thanks as always, Cathy
>