There were five cells. They took me straight to cell three, which was ready for me. It was a ten-by-ten cell with a little hole in the ground for a toilet. The chief of police, the chief of the CIO, and the Gukurahundi commander, Perrance Shiri, were in there. Three or four other CIO guys immediately pounced on me and attacked me. Fists, boots, everything. Shiri was kicking me. He was the architect behind the killing of twenty thousand people. Now he is commander of the Air Force. Heโs a guy that everybody says should go on trial at The Hague. And he was in my cell with three or four other policemen, beating the shit out of me. They were yelling and screaming insults: Dog. Motherfucker. Puppet. Sellout. A puppet of the Americans. Funnily enough, they liked Americans at that time, but that didnโt stop them from the insults.
John NdhlovuโHope Deferred: Narratives of Zimbabwean Lives