Reward offered in Zimbabwe

Press, 6 November 1984, Page 8

Reward offered in Zimbabwe

NZPA-AP Harare The parents of six tourists who were kidnapped by Zimbabwean anti-Govern-ment dissidents in July, 1982, have offered a SUS7I,OOO reward for information that leads of the recovery of their bodies, and more for proof the six are still alive. The men — two American, two British, and two Australian — were abducted on July 23, 1982, on the main road between Zimbabwe’s tourist attraction, Victoria Falls, and Bulawayo.

The kidnappers left a ransom note calling for Robert Mugabe’s Government to release several members of Joshua Nkomo’s opposition

Zimbabwean African People’s Union who had been arrested on charges of plotting against the Government and an end to public criticism of Mr Nkomo by Government officials. The Government rejected the conditions. The tourists have not been heard from since, despite a huge Army and Air Force search, throughout the bush country of south-western Matabeleland. The parents’ offer in Zimbabwe’s national “Sunday Mail” and “Sunday News” newspapers was also published in papers in neighbouring Zambia and Botswana,' where it is thought the tourists’ abductors may have taken them to evade the intensive manhunt in Zimbabwe.