At the mercy of Mugabe's secret police

Date: 17 April 2004

Source: Weekend Argus (SA)

Author: Douglas Carew

print friendly version

The South African tourists who endured a day of hell in Zimbabwe where Robert Mugabe's secret police interrogated them as suspected mercenaries, have given a gripping account of their ordeal. The official line from the Zimbabwean government is that the tourists, mainly from Cape Town, were held for questioning because they did not have permits to operate motorised rubberducks in the environmentally sensitive Mana Pools National Park. But two of the tourists told the Weekend Argus that it was clear that they were held on suspicion of being on a mission to rescue 67 men arrested in Zimbabwe last month on charges they were mercenaries plotting a coup in Equatorial Guinea. The nine South African tourists were on a 2 400km trip along the length of the Zambezi River from its source in Zambia to its mouth in Mozambique when they were rounded up by Zimbabwean National Parks employees armed with AK-47s on Wednesday, March 31. The following day, two of the team were left to look after the boats and equipment while the remaining seven were taken away and subjected to repeated rounds of interrogations and human rights abuses by various officials, including members of the secret police.

The trip was essentially an adventure holiday for the tourists but it was also meant to raise funds to combat malaria in Zimbabwe. The tourists arrived back in Cape Town on Sunday, April 11 and the official line from Old Mutual, one of the trip's sponsors, was that the team had suffered a "minor setback when they were detained by police for a short period in Zimbabwe". But a Weekend Argus interview with one of the tourists uncovered far more disturbing details of how seven of them had endured hours of interrogations by armed men who denied them their basic human rights. One of them, Cape Town lawyer Bob Groeneveld, now safely back with his wife and three young children in Hout Bay, made it clear that all their permits had been in order. Expedition leader Andrew Weinberg confirmed that the interrogations had nothing to do with permits for motorised boats. "We were held on suspicion of being mercenaries," Weinberg said.

The trip started in Zambia and turned into a holiday from hell when the team neared the Mana Pools in north-east Zimbabwe. "An hour before we reached the pools we were approached by two barefooted National Parks guys who appeared out of the bushes. They carried AK-47s and asked to see our permits. We showed them and they said fine," Groeneveld said. But when the team got about 100m from the campsite at the pools, they were met by a boat carrying four National Parks men with AK-47s. "They asked us to follow them in and we didn't think too much about it." Again they were asked to show their permits and one of the National Parks employees said he would have to contact his superiors but the phone lines were down. The following day five men arrived including one "in a big uniform with lots of badges". "He was the local chief of police and said we had to go to Chirundu (on the Zambian border) for interviews." The team initially said no, but in the end agreed that seven of them would accompany the police chief and two members would remain and look after the equipment.

"Then 17 more guys with AKs arrived and at that point we realised things did not look rosy. One of the guys in our team had a digital camera and I told him to take photos of all our permits so that if they disappeared we would have proof that we had them." The seven were made to sit on the floor of a truck for the three-hour trip. "At about 6pm the questioning started. I asked if we could phone the South African Embassy and an attorney but they said 'no'." At one point an interrogator slapped Groeneveld on the back and said there was no need to worry because the National Parks officials had made a mistake. "They said they would arrange transport back to our gear. We waited an hour and nothing happened. Then we were told there would be more interviews at Karoi (a town two hours away on the road to Harare)." At no stage were the seven told why they were being held. "When we asked they would just shrug their shoulders." The seven were then told that the secret police were coming to fetch them. "It was about 9pm now and things were escalating. They did not know that we had cellphones so I phoned a colleague in Cape Town (at the law firm Fairbridge Arderne and Lawton) and told her that I thought we were being held on suspicion of being mercenaries." The police then confiscated the cellphones, except for one that Athol Moult slipped into the side of his shoe.

At 10.15pm three men in black trenchcoats arrived. "They looked exactly the way bad guys do in the movies." The seven were packed into the back of a Land Rover for a two-hour journey to Karoi in the rain. "We were dressed in shorts and T-shirts and froze our b*lls off." At Karoi they were herded into a room. "They then took us out, two at a time, to a room for questioning. Then they took four of us, loaded us on the back of a bakkie with about 13 guys in trench coats and drove off. This was two in the morning and we got no explanations." Groeneveld expected the worst. "I quietly said a few prayers and made my peace." The bakkie stopped outside a building with three interrogation rooms. "We were taken in one at a time and questioned by five guys." At every place of interrogation they had seen posters detailing the rights of prisoners, but when Groeneveld stopped to read a poster he was told: "That doesn't apply to you. Don't read it." There were several rounds of interrogations and at one point an interrogator said: "This is s**t. I should be in bed with my wife." At 4am a second group of interrogators arrived. "We endured another series of questions, especially about any military training. When and how did you serve? Your favourite weapon? That kind of crap."

At 5am the seven were told that everything was OK and they would be released at 6am. "It was all smiles." Again nothing happened. "The next thing military intelligence guys arrived from Harare. An evil bunch. I asked if they suspected us of being mercenaries and they said 'yes'." The interrogations continued and by 10am the seven still had no indication that anyone in the outside world had any idea where they were. "We were told we could be held for 30 days and not to worry because we only had 29 to go." Then a young farmer walked into the police station and Groeneveld managed to slip him a business card. "I asked him to tell my firm to get us an attorney." Groeneveld also decided to risk using Moult's cellphone. He made the 30m walk to the toilet under armed guard and then tried to SMS the law firm. He was unable to send the SMS and decided to turn the phone off. "This guy with an AK-47 was standing right outside the toilet door and I figured the worst thing that could happen was for the phone to ring."

Another farmer arrived, took one look at the state of the seven lying on the floor of the police station and went to buy them Cokes and pies. "He was a real life-saver." Groeneveld also managed to slip a business card to this farmer. Then four more interrogators arrived from Harare and the questioning started again. "These guys would circle you for three or four minutes, not saying anything. Then they would ask your name and give you the evil eye again for several minutes." In the meantime the two farmers had both called the law firm and a Zimbabwean attorney arrived at 1pm and told the seven that the firm had launched an application in an Harare court to have them released. At 2pm there was a call from authorities in Harare to release the men. "But the police chief just kicked our attorney out of his office and out of the police station. And there we sat." About 90 minutes later the attorney returned to say the South African High Commissioner had been denied permission to leave Harare to visit the seven.

Everything changed at 3.30pm when an official fax came through informing the police chief to release them. "He gave us this long speech saying it was all a misunderstanding. He hoped we would visit again and that there were no hard feelings." The men were also asked to pay an admission of guilt fine for not having permits for their motorised rubber ducks. "We said forget it. We had been through seven rounds of questioning and we had done everything by the book. The police chief said 'if you don't want to sign that's fine' and handed us back our passports and cellphones." The seven were packed onto the back of a bakkie and taken to their camp at the pools where they arrived at 9pm and were re-united with the two remaining team members. "We went to the National Parks warden and said we would be leaving the next morning. We asked him if he wanted us to paddle out of the pools but he said 'no problem, just go'. All that s**t about motorised boats was just that - s**t." The nine men set off at 6.30am and ultimately finished their expedition at the mouth of the Zambezi about 250km north of Beira. They flew to Johannesburg and then back home to their families in Cape Town on Sunday. Groeneveld put the Zimbabwean authorities' heavy-handed approach down to fears that people would try to rescue the alleged mercenaries. "I guess tourists in Zimbabwe do look suspicious, because who the hell would go on a holiday there now."