Little hope for tourists

Press, 24 October 1984, Page 16

Little hope for tourists

By

JAN RAATH

in Harare

Zimbabwean Intelligence officers recently returned from an unexpected visit to Zambia in the latest round of exhaustive investigations into the fate of six foreign tourists abducted by guerrillas in Matabeleland in July, 1982. With them on the trip of about 10 days the officers took a 42-year-old alleged guerrilla commander, Gilbert Ngwenya, who is said to have been the leader of the group of 19 who set up the roadblock that stopped the truck carrying the six men at Nyamandlovu, 75 kilometres north of Bulawayo. Since then no trace of the six has. been found. They are two Australians, Tony Bajzelj, aged 25,

and William Butler (31), two Americans, Brett Baldwin (23) and Kevin Ellis (22), and two Britons James Greenwell (18) and Martyn Hodgson (35). Mr Ngwenya asserted when he first appeared in April this year in court that the six were alive and had been taken to Zambia. Initially his assertions appear to have been disregarded. Emmerson Munangagwa, Zimbabwe’s Minister of State responsible for security, responded the next day by saying there was no evidence that the six were alive. The Zambian Government had also been consulted, he said, “and the result was negative.”

Mr Ngwenya is understood to have said during questioning that the six tourists were forcedmarched through the bush from Nyamandlovu to the Zambezi River on the border with Zambia, and then crossed oyer.

It appears that investigations are concentrating less on finding the six alive than locating their bodies. Security sources say it would be close to impossible to conceal six white men for two years and two and a half months in any part of Matabeleland, no matter how remote. The chances are even less likely in Zambia, which does not have the security problem Zimbabwe does. — Copyright London Observer Service.