Mugabe’s torture production line

The frightened youth glanced around nervously. We were standing in the shade of a hut, and no-one was looking at us. He pointed a shaky finger. "That building there, we call it Baghdad. That's where we learn how to torture people."

Both of us were frightened - him because he was an inmate of one of Mugabe's youth terror camps. Me because I was in the Mushagashe Youth Training Centre illicitly, posing, thanks to a Zanu PF friend, as a member of an inspection committee.

We were both frightened of one man - an immensely tall and well-built officer in full military uniform, who called himself Shoko.

Shoko was not the Principal of the centre. But he was the fiercest, loudest and most