IRIN Focus on impact of political violence

As the shadows of the evening lengthen, the children still play freely out in the fields, but the elders huddle in their huts, speaking in low tones. You do not need to look hard to notice the unease that has settled over Mudzi, a rural communal area about 200 km northeast of the capital, Harare. More than 15 months after political violence rocked Zimbabwe during the run up to the country's parliamentary election, the memories are still fresh in Mudzi - one of the areas worst hit by the unrest. At least 35 people, most of them opposition supporters, died across the country in the violence that marred the country's watershed poll in which the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) offered the first credible challenge to the ruling ZANU-PF's political domination. The human cost of those events are still being felt in Mudzi. There is a suspicion of strangers and a guardedness that seems to reflect a new mood in the communal area as a result of the political campaign last year and the renewed politicking around Zimbabwe's upcoming presidential poll due in early 2002. At Katsande primary school near Nyamhanga village, one of the school teachers who would identify himself only as "Mr Chiwanza", told IRIN that the school had experienced no disturbances during the upheavals last year. Chiwanza insisted that he and his colleagues felt free and secure at the school, but he refused to give his full identity because, he said: "That would be just testing my luck too far, you never know what might happen." Maria (not her real name) has been more seriously affected. She says she sometimes wakes up in the middle of the night screaming and calling her husband's name. She told IRIN she has "this constant fear and anxiety, which is sometimes accompanied by headaches and it never goes away". In May last year, at the height of the violence, a group of about 20 pro-government "veterans" arrived outside her homestead demanding that everybody should come out. They allegedly dragged her half-dressed husband out of the hut, accusing him of supporting the opposition MDC and started beating him with logs and iron clubs. Maria's husband died on the spot while her eldest son was left for dead. He died the next morning. Francis Lovemore, a University of Zimbabwe (UZ) trained medical doctor, provides counselling to victims of violence and believes that the symptoms Maria reports are trauma-related. He heads the clinical department at Amani Trust, a Harare-based non-governmental organisation that has led research into political violence and torture in Zimbabwe . The psycological impact of Zimbabwe's political crisis is only slowly being realised. Of the several thousands of clients Amani has dealt with in the last 20 months, Lovemore said 75 percent required specialised counselling in stress management. He believes that much more needs to be done to address the growing numbers of socially damaging violence-related disorders. The police say they are still investigating the death of Maria's husband and son. But the villagers in Nyamhanga IRIN spoke to said they could identify the killers if asked. Many of them are allegedly unemployed youths from the area. "There is a general perception among some people that the police are not doing enough to bring some of these culprits to book, but we are doing all we can to ensure justice is done," police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena told IRIN. Bvudzijena could not provide details of the investigation into the murders of Maria's husband and son, but he insisted that the police "are making impressive progress in all these cases". Villager Samuel Chiromo has a different perspective. "The government has always regarded us as gullible and illiterate," he alleged. "It appears that after wrecking our lives so we could vote it back into power, we have been abandoned. No one can tell us who murdered our relatives or let alone do something about the killings." According to Lovemore, when victims "get the impression that nothing is being done against the perpetrators of violence, it only worsens their situation. But by far the main problem in rural areas is the lack of facilities or qualified personnel to deal with the various cases of stress disorder left behind by political violence." Deputy Health Minister David Parirenyatwa, himself a medical doctor, told IRIN that the public health system - the only source of health services for more than 95 percent of rural people - could in most cases only adequately deal with the physical injuries of victims of violence. "The physical aspect of it can in most cases be dealt with at the district hospitals. It is the mental scarring, the stress that results from the physical wound, that is difficult to handle," said Parirenyatwa.