on a nearby farm.

Their captors began with an interrogation, accusing them of plotting to overthrow the President. "They said we had been trying to incite villagers into revolting. They kept asking us where we kept our guns, and wouldn't listen when we told them we had no weapons at all."

"They tied our feet to branches and hung us upside down like bats, then beat us with batons."

After three days of this and other maltreatment, with no food or water, he lost consciousness. He woke up in a local clinic with two of the others. All three were in very poor physical condition. Two more were missing.

Thulani Bhebhe is one of two local villagers who found Dube and his friends. "We were looking for our cattle. The three of them were piled on top of

each other like garbage, and some shrubs had been thrown over them. I think their captors believed they were dead."

The two missing men were dead. Their shallow graves were found on land 15km away. They were re-buried at their village.

A government source confirms that for the past month there has been a deployment of CIO squads in Matabeleland, to counter an alleged campaign of violence by MDC activists in what is an opposition stronghold.

"The President believes that villagers there have always been against his rule, and will do anything to throw him out of power," said the source.

The Minister of State Security, Didymus Mutasa, was typically blunt when asked to comment. "Write what you want to write, it will not change us," he said.