http://www.dailytelegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/03/26/wzim2 6.xml&sSheet=/news/2003/03/26/ixworld.html
'Hitler' Mugabe launches revenge terror attacks By Peta Thornycroft in Harare (Filed: 26/03/2003) President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe has compared himself to Adolf Hitler. At the state funeral of one of his cabinet ministers, Mr Mugabe said: "I am still the Hitler of the time. This Hitler has only one objective, justice for his own people, sovereignty for his people, recognition of the independence of his people, and their right to their resources. Sexually assaulted: Patricia Mukonda in hospital yesterday "If that is Hitler, then let me be a Hitler tenfold. Ten times, that is what we stand for." Hours later members of the Zimbabwe National Army, including Mr Mugabe's elite force, the Presidential Guard, began a pre-dawn rampage in revenge for the opposition general strike last week. The attacks left more than 250 people injured, scores of them seriously, but victims remained defiant yesterday. Patricia Mukonda, 27, a secretary at the head office of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, needed hospital treatment. Up to 60 members of the Guard and other soldiers arrived in two armoured personnel carriers in Mabvuku, a working class suburb east of Harare, and attacked under cover of darkness. Bursting into her house, they accused her of burning three buses during the two-day strike. "They beat me all over," she said, adding that she was sexually assaulted with a baton while her six-year-old son was forced to watch. "They said I was [MDC leader Morgan] Tsvangirai's prostitute," she said. "They roped me to the window sill, took a glass and broke it, and pushed my left arm on to it and I fainted. They heard a woman crying and rushed out and my brother came in and took me to a field, and I slept." Miss Mukonda, who is chairman of her local residents' association and has been arrested five times, said the soldiers promised to return to Mabvuku and kill 20 people by the end of the month. "They have to come at night when we are sleeping, when we are weak," she said. "What hurts my mind is that I am in hospital, and I should be revenging. I will be the first soldier of the MDC." The United States condemned the regime's actions and said the attacks were directly linked to Mr Mugabe's "Hitler" remarks. President George W Bush has frozen the assets of Mr Mugabe and 76 other government officials, accusing them of undermining democracy. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
