2 OVERVIEW OF TORTURE IN ZIMBABWE As indicated, torture has been reported in all the past three decades in Zimbabwe, but there have been periods during which torture was relatively uncommon. For example, although political violence accompanied the elections of 1985, 1990 and 1995 very little torture was reported between 1987 and 1998.Outbreaks of organized violence and torture however have been reported for all the national elections since 2000.There was, however, massive torture reported during the Liberation War, the disturbances during the socalled Gukurahundi period of the 1980s, and a return to epidemic levels of torture beginning with the Food Riots in 1998, which have persisted to the present. The work of CCJP (CATHOLIC COMMISSION FOR JUSTICE AND PEACE) in the 1970s was complemented by Amnesty International4, and it was clear at the time that torture (and other gross human rights violations) was widespread and systematic. 2.1 The Liberation War Torture during the Liberation War of the 1970s was documented at the time by the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace [CCJP], and more extensively documented, and corroborated, much later by the Amani Trust. In a series of publications5, CCJP demonstrated the widespread use of torture by the Rhodesian security forces, but this work was discontinued in the face of severe government pressure and the passing of formal impunity, by the notorious Indemnity and Compensation Act, which vitiated all attempts by CCJP to use the legal system to prevent torture and obtain redress for the victims. Most of this work was concentrated on the violations inflicted by the security forces of the illegal Rhodesian government, but subsequent work by the Amani Trust demonstrated that the guerrilla forces were not exempt from such accusations6. However, the Amani work did give an indication of the comparative rates of abuse of the various military forces, and, in the sample described and assessed, 90% of the survivors reported their torture occurred at the hands of the Rhodesian security forces. The Amani Trust, in a series of small epidemiological studies of torture in Mashonaland Central Province – one of the worst affected areas during the Liberation War – estimated that one adult in ten over the age of thirty was a survivor of torture7. It is worth commenting though that many of the victims of guerrilla torture were also executed, and hence it is probable that the sample is skewed in favour of survivors. Of course, the Amani data deals only with survivors, and does not reflect the numbers of people that were killed by the Rhodesian security forces in “counter-terrorism” actions, which also included a number of large massacres in Mozambique and Zambia. It can be credibly asserted that a strong case could be made for war crimes having been committed by both sides during this conflict. Nonetheless, all of these atrocities did occur during a time of obvious war, and a short and bloody war. By the end of hostilities, it is estimated that 60,000 people had lost their lives, more than 750,000 had been displaced from their homes in the country side to “protected villages”, an equivalent number had been turned into refugees (mostly in Botswana, Mozambique and Zambia), and 100,000 had been injured. Whilst the existence of a state of war might explain these horrors, it does not of course excuse them, but neither reason can be invoked as explaining the next epidemic of violence, the Gukurahundi of the 1980s. 2.2 The Gukurahundi The organized violence and torture that was inflicted upon the southern half of Zimbabwe during the 1980s occurred quite clearly during a time of peace, although it was also a time during which the new state of Zimbabwe lived in a very dangerous neighbourhood. With wars in Angola, Namibia and Mozambique, and a state of near-insurgency in South Africa, Zimbabwe was a target for continuous attempts by the South African regime to destabilise the country and neutralise its support for the liberation movements of the region. The organized violence and torture that swept Matabeleland and the Midlands from 1982 to 1987 was partially described again by CCJP and other groups, but the extremely courageous work by the various human rights groups received little public attention, apart from some exposure by a number of newspapers. A government commission, the Chihambakwe Commission, was set up to examine the allegations of gross human rights violations, but its report has never been made public. Thus, the detailed exposure of the human 4 5 6 7 See Amnesty International: Rhodesia: AI campaign: use of torture in Rhodesia - Amnesty International 1977; Amnesty International: Rhodesia: HR violations in Rhodesia 1978/1979 - Amnesty International 1979 ; Amnesty International: Rhodesia: Torture in Rhodesia: Extracts of Statements received by AI - Amnesty International 1977. See CCJP (1975), The Man in the Middle: torture, resettlement and eviction, SALISBURY: CATHOLIC COMMISSION FOR JUSTICE AND PEACE IN RHODESIA; CCJP (1976), Civil War in Rhodesia: Abduction, Torture and Death in the Counter-Insurgency Campaign, SALISBURY: CATHOLIC COMMISSION FOR JUSTICE AND PEACE IN RHODESIA. See Amani (1998), Survivors of Torture and Organised Violence from the 1970 War of Liberation, HARARE: AMANI. See Reeler, A.P., Mbape,P., Matshona,J., Mhetura,J., & Hlatywayo,E. (2001), The prevalence and nature of disorders due to torture in Mashonaland Central Province, Zimbabwe, TORTURE, 11, 4-9. Page 3