Zimbabwe: Shut your mouth or else

Jairos Mukotosi, 50, is avoiding a team of consultants, sent as part of a parliamentary outreach programme to the Rushinga area of rural Mashonaland Central Province in northeastern Zimbabwe, to find out what people would like included in a proposed new constitution. But for the past two months the members of the youth militia aligned to President Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF party - have been warning villagers to either shut up or support ZANU-PF's view on the new constitution, which includes no limit on the number of presidential terms that can be served. They have dubbed their operation "Vhara Muromo", or Shut Your Mouth.