Zimbabwe: The Face of Torture and Organised Violence CASE STUDY TWO January 1999 saw court challenges and public confrontations with the Zimbabwe Government over torture, following an independent newspaper’s report that 23 army officers had been arrested after a coup plot. On 10 January 1999 The Standard wrote in its front page story that the officers were disgruntled with Zimbabwe’s military involvement in the war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, as well as Mugabe’s mismanagement of the economy. As a consequence of the report (which the Government branded as lies), two local journalists were unlawfully detained and severely tortured. The military picked up Mark Chavunduka, The Standard editor, within two days of the story, and allegedly tortured him on and off for the next eight days until his release on 21 January. Ray Choto, who had written the report and initially gone into hiding, and being unaware of precisely what was happening to his editor then reported to the police, was promptly handed over to the persons who were apparently torturing Chavunduka, and he is said to have suffered the same fate. Both men were apparently stripped naked, blindfolded, shackled in leg irons and handcuffed, and severely beaten with planks on the bare soles of the feet and on the buttocks, slapped, kicked and punched, subjected to water immersion torture (suffocation in water bags tied around the neck), and given powerful electric shocks to different parts of their bodies. The torture apparently went on for hours as the torturers, soldiers as well as CIO personnel, demanded to know the source of the story. The two men were also reportedly made to roll naked on the tarmac in the rain while being kicked, punched and slapped, and were told that they were going to be killed. The torture apparently took place in the CIO’s notorious underground torture-chambers at Goromonzi outside of Harare, as well as Cranborne Barracks, an army base in the capital. The Zimbabwe military, which has no jurisdiction over civilians, ignored all the urgently obtained court orders for Chavunduka’s and then Choto’s release, but eventually handed them over to the police who released them. The episode led to unprecedented public protests, including from the judiciary who addressed an open letter to Mugabe calling upon him to restore the rule of law, and a peaceful human rights march on Parliament led by lawyers in court regalia. Mugabe’s response was to threaten the judges and to justify the army’s and CIO’s actions, while the riot squad stopped the march on Parliament using dogs, tear-gas and batons. An urgent meeting of human rights NGOs and the Law Society with Attorney-General Patrick Chinamasa, later made Minister of Justice, drew his assurance that he would direct Police Commissioner Augustine Chihuri to investigate the torture. Chinamasa soon reneged on this assurance and accused civil society of having a political agenda. In 2000, after the two journalists made an application to the Supreme Court, the then Chief Justice Anthony Gubbay ordered the police to investigate the torture, but they never have. More than six years after the event no identification parade has ever been held, no arrests have been made nor a single perpetrator ever brought to court. Instead the two journalists were prosecuted for publishing a false story likely to cause fear, alarm and despondency, but the Supreme Court declared the charge unconstitutional. Contempt of court proceedings brought on the two mens’ behalf in the High Court against those responsible for ignoring the court orders for their release from military custody, including against the Minister of Defence, effectively came to naught before the then Judge President, Godfrey Chidyausiku. He was promoted to Chief Justice when Gubbay was forced out in 2001. One of the complainants, Mark Chavunduka, died in 6