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He has whipped strangers with barbed wire and hit them with iron bars. He has stood by while old men were beaten half to death, as he chanted songs glorifying the violence.
Gibson became one of Robert Mugabe's foot soldiers when the 84-year-old President turned an election into a guerrilla war. He is one of thousands of members of the armed youth militias who have turned on their own people in a vicious campaign of looting, torture and murder. But now Gibson is risking his life to tell his story. He was forcibly recruited into the campaign of terror and now he can see no way out. Not yet 25, his life is now completely "alien" to him he says. There is no end in sight, even now the elections have come and gone and the terror tactics have succeeded in overturning the opposition's first round lead and returned Mr Mugabe to office.
"I have no idea when it will stop. We have been told we must go door to door finding the MDC persons. Maybe tonight, maybe in two, three days' time.
"It started just a month ago at dusk when Gibson was sitting on the pavement outside a shopping centre in Warren Park, a dirt poor area of Harare. He was confronted by a gang of 30 youths wearing the colours of Mr Mugabe's ruling Zanu-PF party.
Armed with whips and sticks they attacked everyone indiscriminately. "They beat us like animals. Like we were defenceless schoolchildren."In the mIlEe there was one figure who stood out. An older man in a Zanu T-shirt, wearing an army beret and a silver pistol in a holster. A self-declared "war vet" he was the one issuing threats in all directions.
"He was shouting 'If the MDC wins I'm going to kill everyone,' and 'if you vote MDC you vote for war'.
"Everyone was ordered to the local primary school. There were more beatings there, and the songs started. All-night sessions, or pungwes, chanting party slogans and songs from the liberation war of the 1970s. Dissenters were beaten "thoroughly", blows from bars, sticks and whips that would often leave the victim broken and unconscious. Slogans had to be memorised. "I would chant 'War' and the answer was 'Right now'.
"As the second round of the presidential vote neared, the chant became: "27 June, Mugabe is in office!" The answer was: "27 June, Mugabe is in office! By force!
"People were told to bring any MDC paraphernalia they had to the meetings. T-shirts would be burnt, suspected opposition voters would be forced to renounce their vote and swear oaths of loyalty. Many had to sign in twice a day to keep track of their whereabouts.
Now trained and "re-educated" the new Zanu youth militia was ready to be sent on "patrol", roaming the streets of their home area after dark, stopping anyone not attending the pungwes or just walking in the wrong direction. Anyone who didn't know the chant would be savagely assaulted.
Gibson tells his story in an urgent manner but the tone is flat, as though reciting a report of events, stripped of all feeling. Pushed to recall feelings as well as facts his expression changes, his eyes water. "For someone to be scared of me, to hit people, is completely alien." He repeats this word "alien" and then becomes angry. Last week he was given a sjamboek for the first time, an improvised whip made from recycled rubber with knots of barbed wire. It is light to hold, he says, and inflicts horrendous damage. "You can't hit someone with barbed wire," he insists, although he has.
"I feel like I'm being forced to kill someone. But I have to do it because if I don't, it will be me next."He cannot be sure whether he has seen people die. He remembers a man, a known opposition supporter, being tortured. "He was really beaten and when they stopped he wasn't moving. "I was thinking, what if that was my brother?"Others, he says, have begun to enjoy it, some of them have started to believe what they are chanting.
"They think they're in a war. They are crazy."Their patrols are often raids. Last Monday, their "mission" was to loot a fuel depot, stealing 250 litres of diesel. Local beer halls are forced to donate dozens of crates and the militia are encouraged to drink it before going on patrol or missions. This diet is supplemented by smoking dagga, a form of marijuana.
Gibson says that he tries to warn people what is in store if he can. "When it starts, there is nothing I can do. Even if I know the person, even if it was a close relative, I can't help.
"Pungwes, patrols, beer, fear, beatings and chanting, this is how Gibson has been "reborn" as a Zanu believer. It was a reluctant birth into a life he now hates. "I can't go home, not for more than a few hours. Every night I have to sleep at the base."The militias are not paid anything but beer and dagga.
Gibson has a wife and a baby, a girl of two months, born between the first round of the presidential election, and the run-off on 27 June. "I have a wife and a child," he says in despair. "That child needs to eat something.
"The family had scraped a living from petty trading but now there is no time for that. At night they are sometimes fed sadza, a maize porridge, but eating brings guilt.
"You can't eat. Your child, your baby, is hungry. To eat well while your family is hungry, it is pointless.
"The stolen minutes at home can be equally painful. "My wife, sometimes she thinks I'm not enough of a man. You know the things ladies say. "But then she cries and is sorry, she knows what will happen if I don't go.
"If I was alone I could run. If we could just run away ... But in the rural areas it's worse.
"What does he think of the liberation hero, the 84-year- old leader whom he chants for? "He's destroying our future. We are not doing anything productive. I've got nothing. In the shops there is nothing.
"What will happen to Gibson? "I don't know," he says. "Maybe I'll die."
- INDEPENDENT
