As Robert Mugabe's grip on power has slipped, the thugs who carried out preelection terror in his name find themselves in the cross hairs of those they tormented.
Reporting from Harare, Zimbabwe -- The "green bomber" dropped into Club M5 the other day to get a bottle of Lion beer to go, but he wasn't fast enough. Right away he was surrounded by five members of the opposition, people he used to beat up, in a township bar where he used to be king."They just surrounded me. They started accusing me of this and that. They just wanted revenge. They said: 'Now we got you alone. You used to trouble us during your heyday. Now it's our day.' "....
The green bombers were the ruling party's shock troops, thugs who killed and terrorized in the name of President Robert Mugabe before elections this year. Just a few months ago, the thought of challenging one of them was unthinkable in Harare's townships, stagnant and hopeless places where young men hung around sharing cheap beer in plastic bottles and waiting for the "Old Man" to die.
But after Mugabe was forced into a power-sharing deal with the opposition in September, there was a quickening: People were impatient, exuberant, hopeful and fearful of betrayal all at once. Now that the deal has collapsed, the frustration in the capital's townships is palpable, and the specter of spiraling violence looms over their shabby streets.
People want justice -- and without it, some warn darkly, they'll take matters into their own hands...
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even a small snake has a tooth...
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