Airport/Geoghegan boarding plane

Music

00:00

GEOGHEGAN:  Posing as a tourist is the only way a foreign journalist can enter Zimbabwe.

00:18

Plane takes off

Music

00:25

Night time tracking shots through streets

GEOGHEGAN:  If I get caught I’ll be arrested and deported, but for Zimbabwe’s opposition supporters it’s far worse.

00:39

Day time tracking shots through streets

Dozens of activists have been killed by government security forces since the March election.

00:53

Music

00:59

Jim at gate greets Geoghegan

GEOGHEGAN:  Others, like Australian Jim Holland, get off comparatively lightly.

01:05

Jim and Geoghegan into car

I pick him up from a safe house in Harare. The day before he’s been arrested and interrogated for several hours.

01:13

In car

GEOGHEGAN:  What threats were they throwing at you?

JIM:  Oh, we will kill you.

01:23

Jim in car

GEOGHEGAN: Why?

JIM:  We will kill you if you keep supporting the MDC by allowing their people to stay at your house.

01:27

There was lots of shouting, and lots of haranguing about foreign interference.

01:34

We have really got you now. You are really in trouble. You are going to really suffer as you’ve never suffered before because of this. Now we can see what you are doing. And it went on like this.

01:38

Jim and Geoghegan get out of car

GEOGHEGAN:  Jim’s crime is he’s married to the senior opposition politician and Australian resident, Sekai Holland, who’s on the run from the police.

01:53

At safe house

He’s hoping to meet her here at this secret location, another safe house the authorities don’t know about.

02:07

Jim. Super: 
Jim Holland

JIM:  To call this an election now is a joke. It’s a war . It’s a war by Mugabe against his people .

02:16

Geoghegan greeting Sekai

GEOGHEGAN:  Sekai Holland arrives later in the day.

02:22

Sekai enters house

SEKAI:  Is Jim here?

GEOGHEGAN:  Yes, go through..

02:39

Sekai greets Jim

JIM:  Have you been to the house?

SEKAI:  No.

JIM:  Have you spoken to anyone there?

SEKAI:  Yes, I have.

JIM:  Are they okay?

SEKAI:  Everybody’s okay.

02:35

Sekai with mobile phone

GEOGHEGAN:  The 65 year-old grandmother is a key figure in the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, the MDC, but it’s been impossible for Sekai Holland to campaign  in the lead-up to the run-off election.

02:44

Tape 2 8:00

SEKAI [on phone]:  He’d like you and me at a meeting in Msasa…. I’m not coming, Jim is. So Jim will be there!... Jim is coming. He will support you!

02:57

Jim and Sekai at lunch

GEOGHEGAN:  She’s decided not to attend a meeting for fear of arrest and torture .

03:14

GEOGHEGAN:  If they picked you up, what would they do to you?

SEKAI:  Oh they’d torture me, of course.

03:19

Sekai

They would torture me. That’s what they want to do now, probably kill me.

03:23

Tracking shots from vehicle along streets

Music

03:27

GEOGHEGAN:  It seems every movement here is monitored. People are constantly looking over their shoulder. No one is quite sure who to trust and that’s exactly what the Mugabe regime wants. It’s created a state of paranoia, making it very difficult for the opposition to campaign against the government.

03:39

Music

03:57

Ext. Safe house

I only spend two nights per place.

04:03

Sekai

SEKAI:  Anything more than two nights I think the people watching me start to suspect.

04:07

Sekai on phone in garden

GEOGHEGAN:  By keeping on the move, Sekai Holland has evaded security forces, unlike the party’s leader Morgan Tsvangirai who’s been arrested many times over the past few weeks.

04:20

SEKAI: They would like to eliminate Tsvangirai, they really would.

04:34

Sekai. Super: 
Sekai Holland

Movement for Democratic Change

Even those numbskulls know in their stupidity they know that they cannot touch Tsvangirai. But of course they can make mincemeat out of people like me. What are we? Just women, old women, so we can be disposed of. So that’s really what they’d like to do, get the people who are perceived to be closest to Tsvangirai, who are making the machine work. That’s who they want to eliminate, yes, and unfortunately I’m seen in that light.

04:37

File footage. ‘7.30 Report’. Sekai after beating

GEOGHEGAN:  Sekai Holland hasn’t physically recovered from the brutal beating she received last year, which left her with several broken bones. After pressure from Australia, she was evacuated to South Africa for emergency medical treatment.

05:09

Sekai in hospital

SEKAI:  The men came with a two headed truncheon and hit six times on the leg, six times below the knee, and six times up here.

05:26

They whipped me and I counted 81 lashes. My body was totally black.

05:40

I really thought that was the end.

GEOGHEGAN:  Her sense of humour, however, remained intact

05:47

and now, a year later, she can laugh about the attack.

05:56

SEKAI:  People who are fit don’t survive torture, but people who are fat – F-A-T – like I was, survive torture, because they are belting all the fat and the stuff is bouncing off.

06:00

Sekai at computer

GEOGHEGAN:  After ten months recovering in Australia, Sekai Holland decided against the safe and comfortable retirement that beckoned, opting to return home to contest the March elections.

06:17

SEKAI:  I made peace with myself that I would be killed on arrival.

06:29

Sekai

If they missed me then I thought when I got taken in as a candidate – because I knew they didn’t want me to win this seat.

06:34

Sekai on mobile phone

GEOGHEGAN:  She was elected a Senator in Zimbabwe’s parliament.

Now, as she works the phone, her husband decides to venture back to their home.

06:42

Jim in passenger seat of car

JIM:  So if they can intimidate MP, by getting them out of the country, by locking them up in jail, or even killing them, then that will enable them to achieve their objective, which is to regain control of Parliament.  And Sekai is important because, as a senator, has a number of constituencies within the area, and they want to target those MPs.

06:54

GEOGHEGAN:  The Holland’s home is close by.

07:15

JIM: As you turn around the corner let’s just have a look and see if there’s anyone in the street and see if it looks all clear. If it’s OK we’ll just pull up at the house,  otherwise we’ll just go straight down.

GEOGHEGAN:  So anyone loitering would obviously be suspicious?

JIM: Go straight down, go straight down, straight ahead!

GEOGHEGAN:  You saw someone?

JIM:  There was a policeman up the road so I didn’t like the look of that.

07:18

GEOGHEGAN:  With a policeman nearby, Jim Holland decides it’s not worth the risk.

07:44

Jim on phone in car

JIM:  You just have to suspect the worst at the moment.

07:53

Jim and Geoghegan at refuge. Jim greets women and children

GEOGHEGAN:  We drive instead to a refuge the Hollands have set up for victims of the turmoil.

These are the wives and families of political activists who have been forced from their homes and are either missing, on the run, or dead.

08:02

JIM:  This is just the lounge of a small house, and here we currently have 70 women and children, who are refugees  from this political violence. It’s obviously far from ideal accommodation.

08:20

Woman at refuge

WOMAN:  There is no food, no vegetables, no meat, no everything.

JIM:  Hasn’t it come in today?

WOMAN:  No.

08:36

Women and children in yard of refuge

GEOGHEGAN:  Many of the women sheltering here say they fled violent supporters of the President and his party, ZANU PF.

08:47

Patricia

GEOGHEGAN:  So Patricia what happened to you?

PATRICIA:  I was beaten by ZANU PF supporters.  I was injured in my home town of Zaraband, so I ran away to Harare to get help.

08:55

GEOGHEGAN:  And how did you travel?

PATRICIA:  By foot.

GEOGHEGAN:  How far?

PATRICIA:  More than 200 kilometres.

GEOGHEGAN:  You walked 200 kilometres?

PATRICIA: Yes. In three days.

09:11

WOMAN:  They were looking for her husband.

GEOGHEGAN:  Why?

WOMAN:  Her husband was an activist.

GEOGHEGAN:  Opposition activist?

WOMAN:  Yes.

09:27

Children at refuge/ Jim with children

GEOGHEGAN:  We’ve just got word that the Mugabe regime has banned all food aid distribution and that’s really going to impact the women and children at this centre. Jim Holland now has to work out how he’s going to feed these kids.

09:37

JIM:  It leaves us in a very desperate situation. That’s precisely why they’ve done what they’ve done, so people suffer even further,

09:53

Jim

because they’re never satisfied with just driving people out of their homes and beating them up. They actually want to eliminate the population, so this is what they’re doing in practise, they’re killing their own people.

10:01

Jim at home

GEOGHEGAN:  Back on the road, Jim decides to try his home again.

10:19

People sewing

The house has become a drop-in centre for the Holland’s many homeless friends.

10:35

Jim on phone

JIM [on phone]:  Hello Sekai, I’m just back home Everything seems fine here. Is there anything you want me to pick up for you?

10:43

GEOGHEGAN:  Jim Holland is coordinating relief supplies. In a country where essentials are hard to come by, Zimbabweans are relying on the goodwill of people like him… But for now he just wants to get back to his wife.

10:48

Jim and Geoghegan in car. Jim driving.

GEOGHEGAN:  Are you getting tired of life on the run?

11:11

JIM: I’d love to get back to a more normal life, that’s for sure. But we’re so close now to seeing the end to this evil regime, that no matter what the cost, it’s worth putting up with it for now. I mean what we’re experiencing as individuals is just nothing compared to what’s happening to many people who’ve supported the opposition in this country.

11:15

Sekai cooking in safe house

GEOGHEGAN:  We arrive back at the safe house to find Sekai Holland cooking in the dark.

11:46

SEKAI:  I haven’t seen Jim in days. It really is something to celebrate, just being alive today and seeing Jim. That’s a big celebration.

11:53

TV report

REPORTER [TV audio]:  …Zimbabwe cracks down on Opposition rallies before the presidential run-off… This is BBC World News…

12:06

Jim and Sekai watch TV

GEOGHEGAN:  The next day it’s time for her to move on. She’s unsure when she’ll see her husband again.

12:13

TV

GEOGHEGAN:  Do you feel like a fugitive? It’s life on the run, isn’t it?

12:26

Sekai

SEKAI:  Ah, not really. I don’t think it’s like a fugitive because were organising, and I’m getting to know the country, I’m getting to know the people that are really doing the work. And for reconstruction this is extremely important.

12:29

Sekai and Jim in garden

Music

12:43

SEKAI:  There’s no time to feel like a fugitive, because each place where you arrive, you get a briefing on what people are doing there, and you link them up to what’s happening everywhere else.  And seeing the new mood is national.

12:46

Sekai

That people really are fighting back as a way of saying “What is it that you do which will not get you killed?” So people are just fighting back.

13:00

Sekai and Jim in garden. Sekai into car, Jim waving off

I’m very lucky that I have Jim who has always been there and who’s convinced – even more than I am -- that what were doing is right.

13:16

Music

13:28

Credits: 

Reporter: Andrew Geoghegan

Editor: Simon Brynjolffssen

Camera: Paul Roy

13:33