Mugabe's goons burn opponent's wife alive

If you had thought that Robert Mugabe could not do anything worse, his militant goons have perpetrated the most horrendous crime when they burnt alive the wife of Patson Chipiro, a well-known political rival of Mugabe. The incident comes just two weeks before Mugabe and his archrival, Morgan Tsvangirai, face a presidential race run-off.

Following is an extract from a news report from the Timesonline website:

"The men who pulled up in three white pickup trucks were looking for Patson Chipiro, head of the Zimbabwean opposition party in Mhondoro district. His wife, Dadirai, told them he was in Harare but would be back later in the day, and the men departed.

"An hour later they were back. They grabbed Mrs Chipiro and chopped off one of her hands and both her feet. Then they threw her into her hut, locked the door and threw a petrol bomb through the window.

"The killing last Friday – one of the most grotesque atrocities committed by Robert Mugabe’s regime since independence in 1980 – was carried out on a wave of worsening brutality before the run-off presidential elections in just over two weeks. It echoed the activities of Foday Sankoh, the rebel leader in the Sierra Leone civil war that ended in 2002, whose trade-mark was to chop off hands and feet."

The sheer horror of the act speaks of the depravity and inhumanness of the Mugabe regime - all in the name of power.