Press trip lost in bush

Press, 11 May 1984, Page 6

Press trip lost in bush

NZPA-Reuter Bulawayo A Zimbabwean Government trip into Matabeleland for journalists to investigate allegations of Army atrocities ended in chaos when a military convoy got lost for several hours in thick African bush.

About 50 journalists, most of them foreign, were escorted into the area yesterday to check reports from Church groups and foreign news media that Government troops had killed, tortured, and raped civilians on a sweep against armed rebels. Southern Matabeleland was put under a dusk-to-dawn curfew when the operation began on February 3, and journalists are normally barred from the area, a vast, parched region of south-western Zimbabwe.

The reporters asked to be taken to the town of Kezi, in south-eastern Matabeleland. But the Army commander, Lieutenant-General Rex Nhongo, told them that it would be safer to begin the trip at Brunapeg Mission, 100 km farther west.

After entering the curfew area the journalists’ bus and its escort vehicle lost touch with General Nhongo and his lead group. Then it got stuck for nearly an hour in a dry riverbed and had to be pulled out by two armoured personnel carriers.

When the journalists finally reached Brunapeg, an hour after dark, General Nhongo suggested that they head right back to Bulawayo, 200 km to the northeast They got there,. 13 hours later.