Findings from analysis of Forum’s data Since July 2001 the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum has been publishing monthly statistics of human rights violations, based on data collected by the Forum’s member organisations. These data, in so far as they involve violations committed by State agents, are analysed in Appendix 2. The results are most revealing. There is a strong relationship between reports published in the news media and the actual cases recorded by the Forum’s member organisations. This goes a long way to refute the Government’s contention that allegations of human rights violations are being made falsely by politicallymotivated groups. As can be seen in Appendix 2, there is near-perfect agreement between the two sources of information, and the area of disagreement, over the temporal distribution of reports, is clearly explained by the closure of the Daily News stable of newspapers. Here it was found that there was very good agreement for the years 2001 to 2003, but not thereafter when the Daily News had been banned from publishing. This gives some assurance that the victim case reports are valid and representative of the actual situation. The findings from the analysis of the victim case reports are startling. The Uniform Branch of the ZRP was mentioned in virtually all cases, but the police were from time to time accompanied by a variety of other groups, with non-state actors – ZANU (PF) supporters, war veterans [ZNLWVA] , and youth militia - being involved in nearly 20% of the reports. Multiple state agencies were involved in 11% of reports, whilst reports involving state and non-state actors comprised 17% of all reports. There were no surprises in the distribution of the alleged perpetrators. The ZRP Riot Squad, ZANU (PF) supporters, and the youth militia were significantly more likely to have been involved in a violation at places other than police stations. Members of the MDC were the major complainants, but so were members of the NCA; members of these two groups comprised 60% of all complainants. As regards the alleged violations reported, the patterns that emerge are largely similar to those observed in the press reports. There were no direct reports made to the Human Rights Forum, or its members, by Zanu(PF) supporters alleging human rights violations. A number of other differences emerged in the patterns of abuse in relation to victims. MDC members are more likely to have experienced violations in places other than police station. The ZCTU and students were more likely to have experienced the violation at police stations. MDC Who guards the guards? Violations by the Zimbabwe Republic Police, 2000 to 2006