The chant from the mob rose in the air as they marched behind their flag through the dusty streets of Epworth in search of defiant voters in need of re-education.

Down the road at the entrance to an open field, pro-Mugabe militants dressed in party regalia proclaiming their allegiance to Zanu (PF) waited to receive their newest victims for an all-day orgy of chanting, beatings, and indoctrination.

In this dirt-poor township south of Harare, scene of some of the worst atrocities of the past six weeks, the shock troops of the party were still waging their campaign of intimidation yesterday, oblivious to the withdrawal of their opposition challenger and the effective end of the presidential election contest.

Morgan Tsvangirai’s decision to pull out has convulsed the world, moving even the recalcitrant United Nations Security Council to issue its first condemnation of the violence. Yesterday the ruling ANC in South Africa voiced its harshest criticism to date, saying that it was dismayed by the actions of the Mugabe regime, which was “riding roughshod over the hard-won democratic rights of the people”.

Jacob Zuma, leader of the party, added to mounting pressure on Robert Mugabe by saying that Zimbabwe was out of control. “You now need a political arrangement there and then further down the line an election,” he said. “We cannot agree with Zanu (PF). We cannot agree with them on values.”

Mr Mugabe remained defiant. “We will proceed with our election,” he told a rally in Banket, north of Harare. “Other people can say what they want but the elections are ours and we are a sovereign state.”

Nowhere was the collapse of the election less evident than in the terrified township of Epworth. “They are just rumours,” said one man watching the mob of 200 youth militiamen begin their bellowing, US Marine-style jog around the streets. “The election is still on.”

The Movement for Democratic Change lodged its formal withdrawal from the election yesterday, two days after Mr Tsvangirai, its leader, announced that he was quitting. For the thugs of Zanu (PF) the battle goes on. Charles, an Epworth resident who works as a domestic servant in central Harare, saw the militias begin their work early yesterday, setting upon the house of an MDC supporter minutes after dawn. “They were smashing it apart, looking for the people who live here,” he told The Times, “Nothing has changed since the weekend. Everyone is still very afraid.”

When Times journalists reached Epworth yesterday afternoon, several hundred people were assembled in the field taken over as a re-education and torture camp, sitting in the long grass as a Zanu (PF) leader chanted pro-

Mugabe slogans and goaded them to respond. The camp at Epworth has become notorious for the kind of abuses reported by witnesses beaten and tortured there.

The camp is in plain sight of the main road. No attempt is made to hide it. Epworth is regarded as one of the areas shut down to outsiders and Mr Mugabe’s thugs have free rein here.

Epworth is the site of one of Zimbabwe’s natural wonders, the Balancing Rocks, which used to be a huge tourist attraction. White faces here must have once been common but yesterday they drew looks of incredulity. Young men dressed in Zanu (PF) shirts roamed the streets, carrying plastic barrels of moonshine, their eyes wild with intoxication.

More organised and equally intimidating were the youth militia jogging through the streets, chanting as they went. Each person they passed returned their Mugabe fist salute; fail to and you are straight to the camp.

“We have all learnt to do it,” Milan, an MDC supporter, told us later in Harare. A month ago he was still proudly sporting his “Morgan is More” T-shirt. Now it is hidden and on his head he sports the ubiquitous Zanu bandana. “It is just for security. It is fake.”

Fear has made it hard to tell a real Zanu (PF) supporter these days. One man said that he was terrified of getting a beating because he did not have a Zanu T-shirt: the party office had run out.

There was no mistaking the identity of the men summoned to drive us out of Epworth. They appeared from nowhere, packed into a glistening silver Toyota that pulled up alongside the Times car. In a split second their doors were open and they were out, their Zanu shirts layered over with an unmistakable green jacket: the Green Bombers, Mr Mugabe’s elite shock troops, the special forces of his campaign.

We took off, and so did they, in pursuit. People scattered from the road. Pulling ahead, we left them behind and raced on to Harare, until we came in sight of a police block. We had no option but to stop. After they let us go, we saw the Bombers’ car gaining ground. They threw their headlights on to full beam and the police, clearly recognising them, waved them straight through at 80mph. The flash of a police sniper’s rifle glinted from the long grass. We lost them again in the maze of Harare’s streets.

Mr Tsvangirai is currently holed up in the Dutch Embassy for his own safety, a move derided by the Government as a stunt to win sympathy from foreign powers. Mr Tsvangirai said yesterday that he planned to leave within the next two days — if it was safe.

He has offered to negotiate with Mr Mugabe if the violence against his supporters stopped. If Epworth is anything to go by, the violence shows no signs of abating. Last night residents were holding their breath, waiting for the beatings, gang rapes and torture to begin all over again, and hoping that this time they had done enough to stop it from happening to them.

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