MatabelelandReport

Most common beating technique: People would be forced to lie face down on the ground, and then would be repeatedly
beaten, often for several hours, with thick sticks or gun butts.
Most common complaints:
Permanent back\arm\leg\neck\hand aches, inhibiting any heavy work.
Fractured fingers\arms and other bones
Permanent scarring of buttocks and back
Recurring headaches, dizziness and high blood pressure
Permanent eye damage and hearing disorders
Jaw damage including loss of teeth
Permanent uterine disorders
Permanent kidney damage, also male impotence
For a region by region breakdown on all offences, see Summary following the Village by Village Reports, page .
5.THE VILLAGE BY VILLAGE SUMMARY - DETAILING OF INCIDENTS ACCORDING TO TIME AND
PLACE.
NOTE:
Numbers in brackets: indicate source numbers of BLPC interviews from which information was derived.
** indicates source document is in a CCJP file
**** indicates an incident involving dissidents. For all other incidents, the perpetrators are identified as Army units or
other Government agencies such as the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO), or Police Support Unit (SU).
5 Brigade (5B) may be assumed as the perpetrator unless another unit is mentioned.
Tsholotsho has been roughly divided up into four regions for this section, each one being an area within the vicinity of
known 5 Brigade Base Camps. In practice some villages were affected by more than one of these units, and in early
1983 the far south of Tsholotsho was probably affected by the unit based in Tsholotsho, as the one at Mbamba Camp
appears to have been established later in 1983. The four regions are:
1) Pumula Mission, covering the whole western area and much of the south.
2) Mbamba/Nanda, in the extreme south and east
3) Tsholotsho town and the central part of Tsholotsho, west towards Dhlamini Rest Camp.
4) Gwayi/Sipepa region, in northern Tsholotsho.
The spellings of names of "villages" or "lines" have been standardised in accordance with the 1975 Surveyor
General's map of the Nyamandlovu region (Sheet SE-35-15).
5.1.PUMULA MISSION AREA (WEST TSHOLOTSHO)
In general, this seems to have been very badly affected by 5 Brigade, who set up camp close to the Mission, from late
January 1983. From interviews, it is clear that many settlements within a very wide radius of the mission experienced
mass beatings, or were burnt to the ground because villagers had fled the area.
A few parts of this area, to the west of the Mission ( eg Korodziba, Soloboni), have been entirely resettled since the
early eighties, so reports on 5 Brigade activities here trickle in from other locations in Tsholotsho, wherever people have
been resettled to. Fortunately, events around Pumula Mission were well documented by CCJP, and File H also has
comprehensive accounts of events in some villages. It has therefore been possible to place those few interviews which
lack detail in context within the broader data framework.
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