The shame of a Mugabe torturer: 'I am being forced to kill someone'

He has whipped strangers with barbed wire and hit them with iron bars. He has stood by while old men were beaten half to death, as he chanted songs glorifying the violence.

Gibson became one of Robert Mugabe's foot soldiers when the 84-year-old President turned an election into a guerrilla war. He is one of thousands of members of the armed youth militias who have turned on their own people in a vicious campaign of looting, torture and murder. But now Gibson is risking his life to tell his story. He was forcibly recruited into the campaign of terror and now he can see no way out. Not yet 25, his life is now completely "alien" to him he says. There is no end in sight, even now the elections have come and gone and the terror tactics have succeeded in overturning the opposition's first round lead and returned Mr Mugabe to office.

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Gibson’s life changed less than one month ago. Sitting after dusk on the pavement outside the shopping centre in Warren Park, the dirt poor area of Harare where he lives, he was confronted by a gang of 30 youths wearing the colours of the ruling Zanu-PF party.

Armed with whips and sticks they attacked everyone indiscrimately.

“I remember an old man, at least 60 years old,” says Gibson. “They beat him too.” Pointing to the inside of his shin he shows where they broke the man’s leg with an iron bar.

“They beat us like animals. Like we were defenceless schoolchildren..”

In the melee there was one figure who stood out. An older man in a Zanu T-shirt, wearing an army beret and a gawdy silver pistol in a holster. A self-declared "war vet" he was the one issuing threats in all directions.

"He was shouting: 'If the MDC wins I'm going to kill everyone,' and 'if you vote MDC you vote for war'.."

Everyone was ordered to go to the local primary school. Once there, there were more beatings and the songs started. All night sessions, or pungwes, chanting party slogans and songs from the liberation war of the 1970s.

They were told they would have to report to the "base", in the grounds of the house of a local Zanu councillor who had lost her seat in the March elections.

Gibson and others went to the police but found they were arrested and kept in the cells for seven hours, accused of inciting violence.

The next day the gang went door to door, ordering people to go, "threatening their families".

Dissenters would be beaten "thoroughly", an orgy of blows from bars, sticks and whips that would often leave the victim broken and unconscious. In the new reality everything was decided by slogans that had to be memorised. "I would chant 'War!' and the answer was 'Right now!'. As the second round of the presidential vote neared the chant became: "27 June Mugabe is in office!" The answering chant was: "27 Mugabe is in office! By force!"

People were told to bring any MDC paraphenalia they had to the meetings. T-shirts would be burned, suspected opposition voters would be forced to renounce their vote and swear oaths of loyalty. Many then had to sign in twice a day at the base to keep track of their whereabouts.

Trained and re-educated the new Zanu youth militia was ready to be sent on "patrol".

This meant roaming the streets of their home area after dark stopping anyone not attending the "pungwes" or just walking in the wrong direction. Anyone who didn't know the chant would be savagely assaulted.

Gibson tells his story in an urgent manner but the tone is flat, as though he's reading a report of events stripped of all feeling. Pushed to recall the feelings as well as the facts his expression changes, his eyes water.

"For someone to be scared of me, to hit people, is completely alien.." He repeats this word "alien" and then becomes angry.

Last week he was given a "sjamboek" for the first time, an improvised whip made from recycled rubber with knots of barbed wire. It is light to hold, he says, and inflicts horrendous damage. "You can't hit someone with barbed wire," he insists, although he has.

"I feel like I'm being forced to kill someone."

"But I have to do it because if I don't it will be me next."

He cannot be sure whether he has seen people die. He remembers an older man, a known opposition supporter, being seriously tortured. "He was really beaten and when they stopped he wasn't moving.

"I was thinking, what if that was my brother?"

Others, he says, have begun to enjoy it, some of them have started to believe what they are chanting.

"They think they're in a war. They are crazy."

The patrols would often be raids. On Monday their "mission" was to loot a black market fuel depot, stealing 250 litres of diesel which was then taken back to base. Local beer halls are forced to donate dozens of crates and the militia are encouraged to drink it before going on patrol or missions. This diet is supplemented by smoking "dagga" a form of marijuana often dipped in other chemicals.

If they are told what the missions are he tries to warn people what is coming.

"When it starts there is nothing I can do. Even if I know the person, even if it was a close relative, I can't help."

Pungwes, patrols, beer, fear, beatings and chanting, this is how Gibson has been "reborn" as a Zanu believer. It was a reluctant birth into a life he now hates.

"I can't go home, not for more than a few hours. Everynight I have to sleep at the base."

They are not paid anything but beer and dagga. The food and fuel they loot on missions goes to the base – much of it is then resold for profit on the blackmarket by party members functioning as a mafia.

"I have a wife and a child," he says in despair. "That child needs to eat something."

The family had scraped a living from petty trading but now there is no time for this. At night they are sometimes fed 'sadza' a maize porridge, but eating brings guilt.

"You can't eat. Your child, your baby, is hungry. Usually I'm the last person to eat in the family. To eat well while your family is hungry, it is pointless."

The stolen minutes at home can be equally painful. "My wife, sometimes she thinks I'm not enough of a man. You know the things ladies say.

"But then she cries and is sorry, she knows what will happen if I don't go.

"If I was alone I could run. If we could just run away? But in the rural areas it's worse."

There is no end in sight, even now that the elections have come and gone and the terror tactics have succeeded in overturning the opposition's first round lead and returning Robert Mugabe returned to office.

"I have no idea when it will stop. We have been told we must go door to door finding the MDC persons.

"Maybe tonight, maybe in two three days time."

What does he think of the liberation hero, the 84 year old leader whom he chants for?

"He's destroying our future."

"We are not doing anything productive. I've got nothing. In the shops there is nothing."

What will happen to him?

"I don't know. Maybe I'll die."

Some of the names used have been changed to protect identities