Political violence in Zimbabwe is continuing even as leaders haggle over how to share power, one of the country's most respected rights groups said today.
The independent Women of Zimbabwe Arise also called on politicians charting their country's future to consider not just how to create stability and reverse a dramatic economic decline, but also what to do to heal a nation with a "legacy of violence" stretching back to colonial rule.
The group, known as WOZA, has often faced arrest and beatings as it staged peaceful protests against Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's increasingly authoritarian rule and the impact of the economic collapse on ordinary Zimbabweans.
"There's all this talk about talks," WOZA head Jenni Williams said at a news conference in Johannesburg.
"But nobody talks about the fact that a memorandum of understanding was signed (by political leaders) July 21 that called for an end to violence ... but on the ground we are still being arrested, we are still being beaten."
Williams was arrested in May during a peaceful protest in the Zimbabwean capital.
She spent five weeks in a women's prison notorious for poor conditions before being granted bail, and faces trial later this month on charges of disturbing the peace and publishing statements prejudicial to the state.
She said among the recent activists arrested was a WOZA member in her 70s who had fought white rule.
Other members survived attacks in the 1980s, when thousands of Zimbabweans - most of them civilians from the minority Ndebele tribe - were killed as President Robert Mugabe put down an uprising in the Matabeleland region.
"They should be sitting in the sun enjoying grandchildren," Williams said Tuesday of some of WOZA's older members.
"But they are actually in the streets of Zimbabwe" protesting.
She released results from a 2007 survey that polled more than 2,000 WOZA members in person. It found that more than half risk "developing significant psychological disorders" because of the political violence they have suffered or witnessed.
While WOZA members are at higher risk because of their activism, Williams said the trauma was widespread in her homeland. She said Zimbabwe is in a state of "undeclared war by a government against its people".
WOZA called for more research into the effects of political violence, treatment programs and a truth and reconciliation process - and said such issues should be addressed in the political settlement negotiators are discussing.
The memorandum that Mugabe and the opposition signed in July opened the way to negotiations aimed at a coalition government following two rounds of disputed presidential voting and a wave of violence blamed for the most part on Mugabe's soldiers, police and party militants.
WOZA is among several independent groups in Zimbabwe that are opposed to a power-sharing deal. WOZA instead has called for a neutral party to oversee the writing of a new constitution and new elections.
"We feel that right now, Mugabe should go," Williams said. "It is not an issue for negotiations."
But today Williams and other speakers tried to shift the focus from politics to people.
WOZA member Veronica Guthu rose from the audience to say economic issues had made her an activist.
Zimbabwe has the highest inflation rate in the world, putting food and other basics out of the reach of many.
"There is nothing in our shops. We don't have anywhere to buy food," Guthu said.
"When we want to express our feeling to the government, we are arrested by the police."