Mick Hartley

Unlike the self-important John Simpson (below), other reporters, like the Times' Catherine Philip, are taking risks to report the real atmosphere inside Mugabe's reign of terror:

When Times journalists reached Epworth yesterday afternoon, several hundred people were assembled in the field taken over as a re-education and torture camp, sitting in the long grass as a Zanu (PF) leader chanted pro- Mugabe slogans and goaded them to respond. The camp at Epworth has become notorious for the kind of abuses reported by witnesses beaten and tortured there.

The camp is in plain sight of the main road. No attempt is made to hide it. Epworth is regarded as one of the areas shut down to outsiders and Mr Mugabe’s thugs have free rein here.

Epworth is the site of one of Zimbabwe’s natural wonders, the Balancing Rocks, which used to be a huge tourist attraction. White faces here must have once been common but yesterday they drew looks of incredulity. Young men dressed in Zanu (PF) shirts roamed the streets, carrying plastic barrels of moonshine, their eyes wild with intoxication.

More organised and equally intimidating were the youth militia jogging through the streets, chanting as they went. Each person they passed returned their Mugabe fist salute; fail to and you are straight to the camp.

“We have all learnt to do it,” Milan, an MDC supporter, told us later in Harare. A month ago he was still proudly sporting his “Morgan is More” T-shirt. Now it is hidden and on his head he sports the ubiquitous Zanu bandana. “It is just for security. It is fake.”

Fear has made it hard to tell a real Zanu (PF) supporter these days. One man said that he was terrified of getting a beating because he did not have a Zanu T-shirt: the party office had run out.

There was no mistaking the identity of the men summoned to drive us out of Epworth. They appeared from nowhere, packed into a glistening silver Toyota that pulled up alongside the Times car. In a split second their doors were open and they were out, their Zanu shirts layered over with an unmistakable green jacket: the Green Bombers, Mr Mugabe’s elite shock troops, the special forces of his campaign.

We took off, and so did they, in pursuit. People scattered from the road. Pulling ahead, we left them behind and raced on to Harare, until we came in sight of a police block. We had no option but to stop. After they let us go, we saw the Bombers’ car gaining ground. They threw their headlights on to full beam and the police, clearly recognising them, waved them straight through at 80mph. The flash of a police sniper’s rifle glinted from the long grass. We lost them again in the maze of Harare’s streets.