With most media banned from Zimbabwe it's hard to appreciate the scale of brutality that Mugabe's regime is inflicting on that country's long-suffering people. A little while ago I published photographs of the terribly beaten buttocks of a woman who had made the mistake of campaigning against Robert Mugabe. Don't click here unless you can tolerate distressing images.
But those beaten buttocks give just a tiny hint of the scale of what is going on in Zim. This is part of a statement issued yesterday by "President Tsvangirai":
"Since the 8th of April when the military plan was unveiled, this country witnessed a defacto coup detat and effectively is now being run by a military junta. As a people we have been exposed to state sponsored brutality. The violence continues unabated. 66 people have been killed, 200 people unaccounted for, 3000 in hospitals, and over 25000 internally displaced. We have also witnessed a continuing trend of targeted attacks on our candidates, party leadership, and members. The structures of our party have been decimated with our polling agents remaining prime targets."
You can read Tsvangirai's full statement here, in which he says that his country is now not really in the hands of Mugabe but of a military junta. The Friends of Zim website is a good place to keep track of the despairing news from Zimbabwe.
