'The man in the middle

Press, Issue 33842, 14 May 1975, Page 17

'The man in the middle

LONDON. May 13. A report by a Roman Catholic organisation has accused Rhodesian security forces of using torture, and the Rhodesian Government of forcibly moving large sectors of the African population from their homelands.

The report by the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace in Rhodesia, reviewed on the front page ot “The Times", was formally published later today. The 21-page report, "The Man in the Middle", says that Rhodesian security forces operating against insurgents in the north-east of the country carried out deliberate assaults, destroying villages, houses, property and crops. The Bishop of Unitali (Mgr Donald Lamont), says in an introduction to the report that innocent civilians faced a moral dilemma caught between the brutality of terrorists and assaults by security forces.

The report quotes one victim as saying: “If we report to the police, the terrorists kill us. If we do not report, the police torture us."

The commission says that it has heard of cases in which captives of the security forces were beaten on the face and body with sticks, kicked with boots, or tortured with electric shocks.

In one alleged case of ill-; treatment, Mr Antony Dzvi-j namurungu said that he was held at the Mtoko police station and beaten on his buttocks and feet with sticks. His hair was pulled out of his head and a pair of scissors was placed against his genitals with a threat to cut them off. Other victims were whipped with car fan-belts and given electric shocks.

Met Lamont comments •■As I ing .is MK h ■ -tate I I attairs is allowed to con tinue. «e need hardly won der if the claims of the Ru* sian and Chinese Commun ists so near to our borderexercise a powerful tttrai turn fot the masses of Rho desians who feel that tin have nothing to loose . . . “The loyalty of the mar in the middle will not be won by beating, torturing and maiming him. by shat tering his home with bombfrom the air, bv destroying his crops and driving off hi Cattle, but by restoring and respecting his dignity."