(MISA/IFEX) – Two “Standard” journalists, Mark Chavunduka and Ray Choto, have dismissed President Robert Mugabe’s version of the torture perpetrated against them by the military and other agents of the state as cheap politicking. On 31 January 2000, Chavunduka, a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University in the United States, said that he never sustained injuries […]
(MISA/IFEX) – Two “Standard” journalists, Mark Chavunduka and Ray Choto, have dismissed President Robert Mugabe’s version of the torture perpetrated against them by the military and other agents of the state as cheap politicking. On 31 January 2000, Chavunduka, a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University in the United States, said that he never sustained injuries in an accident as maintained by Mugabe.
“The story about the injuries emanating from a car accident is a hopeless and pathetic excuse for the barbaric assault perpetrated upon me and Ray by the army. The nature and amount of blatant lies fed to Mugabe by his so-called informants is truly without parallel. It is just pure filth,” said Chavanduka.
Mugabe, whose comments were published 28 January in “The Herald”, said that when the journalists were detained by the military, both he and Minister of Defence Moven Mahachi were out of the country, and it was therefore difficult for those at home to attend to the matter objectively. When Chavunduka was detained by the military on 12 January 1999, the minister of defence called for a press conference the following day.
“It’s on record that Mahachi held a press conference on 12 January where he attacked “The Standard” newspaper for publishing the controversial story. By that time Chavunduka was already in the hands of the military. For Mugabe to say there was no one to attend to the matter objectively, since Mahachi and Mugabe were not in the country, is a naked attempt by the president to mislead the world,” said Choto.
The journalists said the president had no basis to deny they were tortured since he had not been physically present at the time of their torture at two military establishments. On 31 January, Dexter Chavunduka dismissed the allegations that his son had stolen a car and sustained injuries which were being presented in court as evidence of torture: “I don’t know where the president is getting this information. I am also puzzled by the president’s statements.”
