VOA常速英语2007-Activists in Zimbabwe Suffer Arrests, Beatings

By VOA News
Bulawayo, Zimbabwe
19 October 2007
 

The southern African Nation of Zimbabwe is suffering from massive inflation, rampant¹ poverty and a 90 percent unemployment rate. But when people try to speak out against the situation and the current government under President Robert Mugabe, they say they are subjected to harassment², arrest and even beatings.

A correspondent for VOA, who must remain anonymous³ for security reasons, files this undercover report from Bulawayo.

A political meeting in the city of Bulawayo, the second largest city in the country, is an energetic occasion, full of singing, chanting and vitriolic⁴ speeches.

Despite their powerful rhetoric⁵, the men who are leaders of the opposition⁶ political party in Zimbabwe, the Movement for Democratic Change, live with fear.

They fear arrest and violence because they speak out against the long-time President Robert Mugabe and his repressive government.

Their apprehension⁷ is not unwarranted. In March of this year, a protest staged by the opposition party turned violent, and police beat many members, including high-profile leaders.

"We are going to a safe house – where we live and work – in the underground of Zimbabwe," says Jenni Williams, who has not slept under her own roof for over a year. She lives her life in fear that she might be followed and drives quickly through the back roads of Bulawayo to avoid the police roadblocks.

"Quite a few people know my face, and most people know the kind of work that I do,” she tells us. “And, it's the most asked question of any of our members who are in custody⁸ – ‘Where does Jenni live?’ "

She is a leader of a group called Women of Zimbabwe Arise – known as WOZA. They organize public protests, deemed illegal by the government and often brutally⁹ suppressed.

Undercover video from June shows a policeman disrupting the protest by lashing¹⁰ out with his baton¹¹.  About 20 women were arrested and beaten that day.

Williams asks rhetorically, "Most of our members feel that if they are going to die; can they just not die silently?" 

Opposition member David Coltart is also a member of the Zimbabwean Parliament. He has received death threats and survived an assassination¹² attempt.  Photographs show him participating in an illegal public demonstration¹³ – protesting the beating of lawyers.

"The riot police then followed us and reinforcements arrived,” Coltart recalled. “We walked about a block together when another truckload – full of riot police, including riot police this time with weapons, with shotguns and high-velocity rifles – arrived and they said that if we didn't disperse¹⁴ there would be very severe consequences."

Severe consequences like the ones a woman we met – we will call her Faith – endured while in police custody.  After she participated in another protest, she was beaten repeatedly and denied medical attention. "And after that we saw policemen. They come running with baton sticks. They beat me, beat me all over and then they beat me on my breasts," she said.

President Mugabe blames any unrest on what he calls the influences of western powers working through disloyal opposition.  He says they are interested in destabilizing the Zimbabwe government for their own personal gains.

"The violence and other acts of lawlessness we have witnessed in recent months, which were planned and executed in complicity with western powers,” the president said in a recent speech, “were meant to create mayhem and hence a basis to place our country on the agenda of the United Nations Security Council."

Journalists are subject to arrest if found to be operating without government permission, which is why much of our video is shot out of moving cars and many interviews are shot to keep the subject's identity a secret.

One such interviewee told us, "Here in Zimbabwe, it is difficult to get something to eat.  So, living in Zimbabwe is now so hectic-- so stressful," he said.

Even doing something as simple as changing local money into foreign currency can land you in jail.

David Coltart, the member of Parliament, said, "In essence it shows that this is indeed a police state, that this is a fascist¹⁵ society."

Opposition leaders such as Coltart, joined by ordinary people in the streets, say they face this everyday.

1 rampant   

adj.(植物)蔓生的；狂暴的，无约束的

参考例句：

• Sickness was rampant in the area.该地区疾病蔓延。
• You cannot allow children to rampant through the museum.你不能任由小孩子在博物馆里乱跑。

2 harassment   

n.骚扰，扰乱，烦恼，烦乱

参考例句：

• She often got telephone harassment at night these days.这些天她经常在夜晚受到电话骚扰。
• The company prohibits any form of harassment.公司禁止任何形式的骚扰行为。

3 anonymous   

adj.无名的；匿名的；无特色的

参考例句：

• Sending anonymous letters is a cowardly act.寄匿名信是懦夫的行为。
• The author wishes to remain anonymous.作者希望姓名不公开。

4 vitriolic   

adj.硫酸的，尖刻的

参考例句：

• The newspaper launched a vitriolic attack on the president.这家报纸对总统发起了一场恶意的攻击。
• Vitriolic impurity is contained normally in the sewage that vitriolic factory discharges.硫酸厂排放的污水中通常含有硫酸杂质。

5 rhetoric   

n.修辞学，浮夸之言语

参考例句：

• Do you know something about rhetoric?你懂点修辞学吗？
• Behind all the rhetoric,his relations with the army are dangerously poised.在冠冕堂皇的言辞背后，他和军队的关系岌岌可危。

6 opposition   

n.反对，敌对

参考例句：

• The party leader is facing opposition in his own backyard.该党领袖在自己的党內遇到了反对。
• The police tried to break down the prisoner's opposition.警察设法制住了那个囚犯的反抗。

7 apprehension   

n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑

参考例句：

• There were still areas of doubt and her apprehension grew.有些地方仍然存疑，于是她越来越担心。
• She is a girl of weak apprehension.她是一个理解力很差的女孩。

8 custody   

n.监护，照看，羁押，拘留

参考例句：

• He spent a week in custody on remand awaiting sentence.等候判决期间他被还押候审一个星期。
• He was taken into custody immediately after the robbery.抢劫案发生后，他立即被押了起来。

9 brutally   

adv.残忍地，野蛮地，冷酷无情地

参考例句：

• The uprising was brutally put down.起义被残酷地镇压下去了。
• A pro-democracy uprising was brutally suppressed.一场争取民主的起义被残酷镇压了。

10 lashing   

n.鞭打；痛斥；大量；许多v.鞭打( lash的现在分词 )；煽动；紧系；怒斥

参考例句：

• The speaker was lashing the crowd. 演讲人正在煽动人群。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The rain was lashing the windows. 雨急打着窗子。 来自《简明英汉词典》

11 baton   

n.乐队用指挥杖

参考例句：

• With the baton the conductor was beating time.乐队指挥用指挥棒打拍子。
• The conductor waved his baton,and the band started up.指挥挥动指挥棒，乐队开始演奏起来。

12 assassination   

n.暗杀；暗杀事件

参考例句：

• The assassination of the president brought matters to a head.总统遭暗杀使事态到了严重关头。
• Lincoln's assassination in 1865 shocked the whole nation.1865年，林肯遇刺事件震惊全美国。

13 demonstration   

n.表明，示范，论证，示威

参考例句：

• His new book is a demonstration of his patriotism.他写的新书是他的爱国精神的证明。
• He gave a demonstration of the new technique then and there.他当场表演了这种新的操作方法。

14 disperse   

vi.使分散；使消失；vt.分散；驱散

参考例句：

• The cattle were swinging their tails to disperse the flies.那些牛甩动着尾巴驱赶苍蝇。
• The children disperse for the holidays.孩子们放假了。

15 fascist   

adj.法西斯主义的；法西斯党的；n.法西斯主义者，法西斯分子

参考例句：

• The strikers were roughed up by the fascist cops.罢工工人遭到法西斯警察的殴打。
• They succeeded in overthrowing the fascist dictatorship.他们成功推翻了法西斯独裁统治。