Evidence presented to the Bulawayo Regional Court provides a revealing insight into conditions in the "protected villages" or keeps. 11 African members of the Department of Internal Affairs appeared before the court in March 1979 charged with public violence, rape and the theft of goats, after terrorising and assaulting villagers in the Nkai area over the New Year period.
The court heard that over the two days 31 December-1 January, the regular commander of a keep at Zwelabo in the Nkai TTL was relieved by a white field assistant, David John Price. Mr. Price was instructed by the District Commissioner to ensure that no-one left the keep during his relief period and to "maintain discipline and morale". The Nkai district was subject to a 5 pm to 9 am animal and human curfew at the time. However, soon after his arrival, Mr. Price and numbers of his men left the keep on more than one occasion "in a spirit of merriment", "laughing and joking among themselves". Witnesses told the court that in the course of these ventures, goats were stolen from local people, killed and taken back to the keep to be eaten; residents of a village 3 km from the keep were assaulted - serious injuries included a woman of about 50 with a broken arm, a woman between 55 and 60 with a gash which had split her ear, a five-year-old child kicked in the nose, which was broken, and three elderly men with head wounds, one in a serious condition; and four women were taken back to the keep and raped. A girl of 16 told the court that she and the three other women were forced to undress and beaten with cowhide whips. Mr. Price came into the room and shouted to his men: "Who wants a woman?" She was then raped six times by a group of five men, and threatened with being shot if she did not submit. Afterwards she and the other women were forced to sing and dance to entertain Mr. Price and his men, who were drinking, laughing and talking on the veranda. They did not report the matter afterwards because the perpetrators were members of the security forces.
The senior District Officer of the Nkai District told the Court that the men's behaviour had totally destroyed in one night all the co-operation between the people of Nkai and the Department of Internal Affairs. The 11 men, who pleaded guilty, all came from other parts of the country - this is a standard procedure of the regime in appointing troops to guard protected villages. Mr. Price himself was referred to the High Court for trial.
A stock loss survey conducted by the rural development research unit of the Institute of Social Research, University of Rhodesia, has provided statistical foundation for the threat of imminent starvation now facing many families in Rhodesia's martial law areas. The survey, conducted between April and May 1976 in two protected villages in the Mukumbura TTL, reveals that 38 people between them lost 516 out of a total of 580.2 large stock units as a direct result of being removed "behind the wire" by the regime in 1973-74. Small stock such as goats, pigs, calves and sheep were each considered to be 0.2 of a large beast by the survey. The results showed that 130.4 large stock units were taken by the regime, 300.6 units were stolen or strayed, 73.2 units were sold by their owners and 11.8 were lost by their owners in other ways. The people in the area were moved from their homes into the keeps in such a hurry that their livestock was left to wander around their original homes, which were subsequently declared "no-go areas" by the security forces. Many of these animals were subsequently confiscated by the regime and sold to the Cold Storage Commission at very low prices. Some of the people who were able to identify their cattle before they were sold were given receipts and told they would be given the proceeds of sale in installments; only some of the money due to them was ever paid, however.
By 1976, the survey found, only 3 out of the 38 informants still owned any livestock, together amounting to 12.4 large stock units.
