Zimbabwe's Killing Fields

KOMPAS.com - Hundreds of skeletons found in a remote mine shaft in Zimbabwe have been used as political propaganda by supporters of President Robert Mugabe.

The Fallen Heroes of Zimbabwe Trust, a previously little known group of Mugabe party loyalists, says says the remains of more than 640 bodies have been discovered in the disused Chibondo gold mine near the provincial center of Mount Darwin, 110 miles from Harare,

But while the trust says the bodies are those of victims of colonial atrocities committed under former leader Ian Smith, pathologists say visual evidence may point to more recent killings in a nation plagued by election violence and politically motivated murders.

The trust last month launched a program to exhume skeletons in the mine shaft in northeastern Zimbabwe, saying the country's former rulers were guilty of human rights violations that far outweigh any accusations of rights abuses leveled against Mugabe's party and his police and military.

Zimbabwe's sole broadcaster, in news bulletins and repeated interruptions to regular programs, has urged ordinary citizens to visit the disused mine to witness the horror of colonial atrocities.

Reporters taken to Monkey William Mine at Chibondo on a trip organized by Mugabe's Ministry of Information said school children were bused there.

Militants sang revolutionary songs, shouted slogans and denounced whites and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's pro-Western party for its links with Britain, the former colonial power.

'Down with whites. Not even one white man should remain in the country,' villagers, evidently carefully choreographed, proclaimed.

They danced at the site in what was said to be an ancient ritual to appease the spirits of those killed by white troops before independence in 1980. Villagers appeared to go into trances and others wept and simulated firing guns.

Exhumed skeletons, bones and remains lay in random heaps, some covered by sheets and blankets, near a pile of coffins. Hair and clothes were clearly visible; one corpse wore black tennis shoes. The mine shaft emitted an overwhelming stench.