December 1978
"The Security are censoring the letters but I must tell you in great sorrowness my Mother has been killed on 18th November at her rural home and murdered in a horrible way. She was tortured up to the point of death, then hanged and left hanging to look like a suicide committed. When I was informed about this I ventured home and was safe for part of the way, but nearer to the area I heard of the Security Forces making terrible acts, beating anyone they met, found at home, or on the path, or hiding from them in the bush. I don't believe even Hitler acted like this. Arriving home I found my relatives crying, with swollen and bleeding muscles after beatings from the Forces while at the funeral. I slept in the bush, my life in danger. Next morning I heard the Forces at villages a mile away burning and hitting the people and shooting some. I got away at once for Bulawayo. This is the truth about life away from the towns. The March 3rd Agreement was supposed to stop the killing of our unarmed people, but this so-called Majority Rule has left Smith with all the powers, and it is seen by the people as nothing but an endorsement of U.D.I. and is not acceptable to them. Now the Internal Settlement is trying to force the people to accept the Agreement, by doing all these acts of atrocities. Yet despite the pain and sorrowness they receive the people seem determined to reject it. Nearly all the African young men are opposed to the military call-up."
