VICTIMS RELIVE ZIMBABWE MASSACRES

VICTIMS relive Zimbabwe massacres that taint new leader.

TO WARD OFF EVIL spirits, Jochonia Moyo picks wild herbs as he returns to Bhalagwe detention camp -the site of-

Unimaginable brutality during a series of massacres more than 30 years ago that still haunts Zimbabwe today.

Here, Moyo was detained, beaten up with clubs, and forced to abuse other prisoners as Robert Mugabe's soldiers embarked on an orgy of killing that left an estimated  20,000  dead in just two years.

The massacres occurred in the early 1980s, but for decades were discussed only in hushed voices.

Now, though, the end of Mugabe's iron-fisted rule revived calls for justice and renewed accusations that his new president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, played a key role in the bloodshed.

''I remember perfectly the day, March 8, 1984, when they arrested me and
brought me to Bhalagwe,'' Moyo, now in his 60s, told AFP as he surveyed the scant remains of the camp.

''While we slept, the soldiers  urinated  on us and new detainees were even forced to lick women's menstrual blood,'' he said.

Moyo had been targeted for attending meetings of  ZAPU, a rival political party that Mugabe was determined to crush as he strengthened his ZANU party's grip on power.

Troops from the notorious  Fifth Brigade, trained by North Korean advisers, committed mass atrocities during the crackdown on a supposed rebellion in southwestern Matabeleland province.

ZAPU supporters, plus many other villagers, women and children, were rounded up, tortured and killed in the massacres, called, ''Gukurahundi- loosely meaning:

''The early rain which washes away the chaff.''

Amnesty International has backed the estimated death toll of  20,000  compiled following an investigation by rights group,  the catholic Commission for Justice and Peace in Zimbabwe.

Amnesty says it first heard reports of the killings in 1982 and has described them as  ''bloody and brutal''.

Agencies.