The secretary general for the Zimbabwe National War Veterans Association, Andy Mhlanga, told the Guardian that the occupations which have exacerbated the political and economic crisis in the country in the past 18 months are poised for a rapid acceleration.

Two years later he went to war; training in Tanzania and Mozambique, with guns from China and Russia to fight against South African-backed settlers of British descent.

I wonder what ever happened to Alexandru Cristea. I came across the teenager on a railway platform in Brasov, a small town in Romania, less than a month ago on holiday. When I first saw him he had his hand in my friend's bag and was liberating her purse. My partner shouted at him and he sheepishly took the purse from under his jacket, apologised, handed it back and started to walk off. Our eyebrows were still raised by a mixture of shock and relief, when another man approached us and asked what had happened. We shrugged and said nothing. "Did he steal something from you"? he asked. "He tried," we said. "But we got it back." We turned around to board the train to the dull thud of punching and kicking.

He looked up to see two other black parishioners, Absalom Jones and William White, being hauled away in the middle of their prayers after being told that they could not kneel there. When the prayer was over, Allen led them out of the church and set up one of his own, where black people could worship with self-respect. The African Methodist Episcopal Church, which he founded, today boasts more than a million members in America.