Rape gangs targeting whites in Zimbabwe

By Peta Thornycroft in Rusape
Published: 12:01AM GMT 07 Feb 2004

When Gisela Honeywill was raped in her daughter's bedroom, her hands tied behind her back, her ordeal was just beginning.

Up to a third of sexually active Zimbabweans are infected with the Aids virus. But police were unable to arrange an urgent medical examination.

She and her husband drove to Harare, two hours away, for anti-viral drugs that could save her from infection if her rapist was HIV-positive. Days later, the results came through: the tests on the 38-year-old were negative.

There is an unprecedented surge of violence against Zimbabwe's dwindling white population, particularly in the mountainous eastern Manicaland province, once a major tourist destination.

Mrs Honeywill's teeth chatter and tears flow when she recalls her ordeal. She and her husband Conrad woke up at 3.15am three weeks ago to find men on either side of their bed in the shabby town of Rusape, 100 miles south-east of Harare.

They were tied up, beaten and robbed in a two-hour ordeal. When the gang found they had only a few South African rand, one angrily accused them of hiding assets.

"My daughter was away on holiday, thank God. They dragged me to her bedroom and stripped me," said Mrs Honeywill. "I thought they were just trying to scare me. I didn't believe I was going to be raped.

"A friend of mine, Francie, was stripped just a short time ago, but they didn't rape her. Then the small fat man hit me, forced my legs open. I didn't bite or scratch, my hands were tied behind my back. Then... I can't remember anything except some time went by, and he said, 'I have finished now'."

All the time, Conrad Honeywill was on his knees crying: "Don't do it to her, don't do it." The windows were open but no one came in response to their screams.

Not their maid living a stone's throw from the back door, nor policemen guarding a politician of the ruling Zanu PF, Didymus Mutasa, four houses away. The three attackers wore Zimbabwe Republic police flak jackets, Mr Honeywill said.

Mrs Honeywill, a secretary at the local private school, was willing to be identified: she wanted the world to know the dangers she and her husband - who was born in Rusape and runs an electrical business - faced in their far-off corner of Zimbabwe.

Two days later, an 18-year-old schoolgirl and her mother had their hands tied and were stripped and threatened with rape in the mountain resort of Juliasdale, also in Manicaland province.

The girl was attacked with her parents by a group of three who could not believe the family did not have foreign currency and high-tech goods.

Speaking this week in the provincial capital, Mutare, where she is in her last year of school, she said: "They took my mum's and my clothes off, dragged me to a bedroom and pushed me down.

"My parents were screaming to them not to rape me. The short squat man said he would give us Aids. All I could say was to rebuke him in God's name. He undid his trousers, and you know... but he could not do it."

Last Friday, 20 miles north of Mutare, a 14-year-old farmer's daughter was taken to a bedroom to be raped because the gang could not find foreign currency when they broke into the house while her family and friends were dining. They were all tied up, hands behind their backs, and pushed on to the floor.

"The short fat man took me to the back room and asked me if I knew what rape was. He told me to stop crying. I carried on crying. I told him I did know what rape was. He said if I didn't tell him where my parents' money was, he would rape me."

Her parents and guests were all screaming and begging for mercy. One of the house guests told a member of the gang guarding them that there was foreign currency in her handbag in the car. They found the US dollars and went away. When the girl finished her story, she slumped on to her father's shoulder, crying quietly.

A white art teacher 10 miles outside Mutare was tortured when her attackers poured boiling wax on to the back of her legs, which have since gone septic. This week she returned to teach at the private school - determined, she said, to carry on living alone.

A retired couple in Juliasdale were attacked and the woman was stripped while they were robbed. And there is much more, and it is ongoing and increasing daily. None of the far richer black families in each neighbourhood or street where these incidents took place since Christmas was attacked.

Black women have been raped because they were suspected of supporting the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. "Most never come to us, so we have no idea of numbers," a human rights activist said yesterday.