7 having been found guilty of attempted murder. They had shot and severely injured a political opponent of the Vice-President, Simon Muzenda, during the 1990 general election. Currently, there has been little attempt by the government to investigate the torture of the two journalists, despite having made admissions in both the Magistrate’s and the High Court that they were detained illegally and that that had in fact been tortured. In one of the very few cases to come to court from the Food Riots in 1998, that of the shooting and killing of an 11 year old child, the presiding magistrate clearly indicated that the police had made no serious investigations to identify the perpetrator, and, indeed, all the indications were that the police were obstructing inquiries. So it is fair to claim that Zimbabwe shows little commitment to justice over the decades. The trends towards impunity, amnesty and pardons must all be taken to indicate the contrary. Thus, one of the key components of a reparations policy, justice, is almost entirely absent when we consider gross human rights violations in Zimbabwe. Impunity, with all its attendant hazards, is commonplace in Zimbabwe.12 Reparations The issue of reparations and justice has been considered in detail recently by the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations 13 , where the Sub-Commission identified four sets of overall principles as important to combating impunity: (a) (b) (c) (d) The victims' right to know; The victims' right to justice; The victims' right to reparations; The right to non-recurrence. The right to know is not simply the right of any individual victim or closely related persons to know what happened, but is also a collective right, ensuring that history accurately records the violations to prevent them from recurring in the future. Its corollary is a “duty to remember”, which the State must assume in order to guard against the perversions of; the knowledge of the oppression it has lived through is part of a people's national heritage and as such must be preserved. The right to justice implies that all victims shall have the opportunity to assert their rights and receive a fair and effective remedy, ensuring that the perpetrators stand trial and that the 12 See REELER, A.P. (1998), Epidemic violence and the community: A Zimbabwean case study, COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT JOURNAL, 33, 128-139. 13 See UN [1997], The Administration of Justice and the Human Rights of Detainees: Question of the impunity of perpetrators of humanrights violations (civil and political), Revised final report prepared by Mr. Joinet pursuant>to Sub-Commission decision 1996/119, United Nations. Economic and Social Council. Commission on Human Rights. SubCommission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities. E/CN.4/Sub.2/1997/20/Rev.1