"They roped a brick to my testicles"

JOHANNESBURG (AFP) — An opposition activist abducted by Zimbabwean security forces last month recalled Tuesday spending long nights listening to the screams of other detainees being tortured.

"During the night, I heard some people being tortured," Bothwell Pasipamire told AFP in an interview. "They were crying in pain."

The 30-year-old private security guard said he managed to escape President Robert Mugabe's forces and flee to South Africa, but only after he was forced to make a false confession that he had undergone military training in Botswana in a bid to topple the government.

In March 2008, the father of two was elected a local councillor in the town of Kadoma, 140 kilometres (85 miles) southwest of Harare, on the ticket of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

In those polls, his party wrested control of parliament away from Mugabe for the first time since independence from Britain in 1980, inspiring confidence in Pasipamire. "I was getting to the council with confidence," he said. "I wanted to make sure everything in the council was in order."

As a member of MDC since its creation in 1999, Pasipamire said he was used to insults and threats from Mugabe's supporters. But things turned for the worse after Mugabe's defeat. In June, before a presidential runoff boycotted by MDC amid spiralling political violence, he was arrested and charged with public violence.

"In police custody, I was beaten by the police. I was assaulted. But in June it was better than in December," he said. On the night of December 13, he was awoken by a loud noise at his door. "Two men confronted me, one put a gun to my neck," he said.

They forced him into a pick-up and took him to an old farm where he was soon subjected to a violent interrogation by soldiers. "They accused me of being trained in Botswana in guerrilla tactics in order to topple Mugabe's government," he said. "They ordered me to say 'Yes I do this, yes I did that'."

"Since I was under torture, there was nothing I could do. As soon as I said No, they assaulted me. "In the room, there was a small brick. They roped the brick to my testicles and ordered me to lift it," he said. During the night, his guards woke him with water hoses. Later he said he heard the screams of people being tortured and beaten.

"I cannot properly tell you how terrible it is to be cold, wet, unable to sleep and surrounded by the sounds of men crying in pain. This was the worst torture of all, and it will be with me all my life," he said. Pasipamire thought he had been abducted because he was active on the local council, but the next morning he learned the truth.

Set before a camera, about 30 men were forced to pretend to beat a soldier. Then he had to stage a fake interview admitting to undergoing training in a Western-financed camp. After three days, he was told that he was going to be transferred.

"I was convinced that these people would kill me, before they put my interview on TV, otherwise I was sure to tell someone that it was a lie," he said. Once on the road, his convoy stopped in Harare, where government information agents told him to run.

"Some told me, 'it is a chance for you to escape. If you fail to escape, they will kill you'," he said, declining to give details for fear of compromising his saviours. "I am confident that change is going to prevail in Zimbabwe," he told AFP. "Now, people are facing economic hardships so the situation is going to force Mugabe to step down."

But he said he would not return home yet, for fear Mugabe would have him killed to keep him quiet. Police in Zimbabwe told AFP that they had no knowledge of Pasipamire's case.

The MDC says that about 40 of its supporters, including Bothwell Pasipamire, have been abducted since late October. The government finally admitted in December to holding 30 of them, but 11 are still missing, the party says.