Mugabe thugs target babies

A baby boy had both legs broken by supporters of President Robert Mugabe to punish his father for being an opposition councillor in Zimbabwe.

Blessing Mabhena, aged 11 months, was seized from a bed and flung down with force as his mother, Agnes, hid from the thugs, convinced that they were about to murder her.

She heard one of them say, “Let’s kill the baby”, before Blessing was hurled on to a bare concrete floor.

Blessing, who may never be able to walk properly, was one of the youngest victims of atrocities against the opposition party Movement for Democratic Change in the run-up to last Friday’s sham presidential election.

As Mugabe, 84, the only candidate in the election, prepared to be sworn in as president today, it emerged that his forces of terror plan to pulverise opponents to prevent them from ever threatening his leading Zanu-PF again.

Leaked minutes of the Joint Operations Command (JOC), which has orchestrated the violence since Mugabe lost a first round of voting in March, revealed that it is willing to wipe out opposition supporters.

A 10,000-strong youth militia loyal to the Zanu-PF has been created to enforce its wishes in case regular army units refuse, according to Zimbabwean human rights agencies.

“It’s a deliberate nationwide strategy to reoccupy space so all space is occupied by the Zanu of Mugabe,” said Jon Stewart, a director of the Zimbabwe Human Rights Forum.

Minutes of one JOC meeting show that supporters of Morgan Tsvangirai, the opposition leader, “will all be internally displaced. The target number is two million supporters”.

The plan is to brutalise people into backing Zanu-PF or fleeing the country. “They’re not going to stop,” said a maid in Marondera. “They’re saying they’ll do more beatings and killings until all the ‘traitors’ are flushed out.”

She and her neighbours were waiting for officials to check their fingers for red ink to make sure they had voted on Friday.