JOHANNESBURG - A Movement for the Democratic Change activist, whose legs and arm were broken after being beaten with iron bars by Zanu agents, is now living in fear in Johannesburg.
Gift Nhidza says he is receiving a flood of anonymous calls.
Nhidza, a former soldier in the Zimbabwe National Army, says he was forced to flee to South Africa in 2007 after being repeatedly arrested and charged for public violence. He was deported in 2007 when he was arrested by the South African Defence Forces in Messina, despite pleading with the South African government that he was a political refugee. He returned to South Africa, but has been denied refugee status.
“I am receiving calls from some people using the public telephone booth who say they know my story and pretend to want to assist me. They then make an appointment with me. When I refuse to meet them, they then tell me that then I do not want to be assisted. Sometimes they threaten me when I turn down an appointment, saying who do I think I am. They threaten to get me.”
Nhidza claims he has identified one of his callers as a member of the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO). The man, says Nhidza, used to rent an office at Harvest House in Harare, where the MDC offices are situated, and was a security officer for the MDC then. Nhidza says the man was a member of the CIO but was pretending to be a consultant.
Nhidza says he is not safe in South Africa, where he claims to have foiled two kidnap attempts. His application for refugee status has hit a brick wall and he has been given 30 days to leave the country. However, he also says he is wanted by the police in Zimbabwe on accusations of training MDC cadres in South Africa – charges he denies.

By The Zimbabwean