Anthony Reeler your dismissal.23 And if you were a woman, you would not have been immune either, as many reports detail.24 In all of these events, you might have decided that discretion was the better part of valour and gone into hiding or left your job. Nearly 9,000 people did this during the pre-election period in 2000. It became an increasing problem again in 2001, 2002, 2003, and an increasing number of people and their families were forced into hiding, abandoning their homes and jobs. This is another form of psychological torture: being forced into hiding by threats is regarded by the UN Compensation Commission as a gross human rights violation requiring compensation. All of this has been condoned, or at least not condemned, by the leaders of ZANU(PF). They are continuously on the record to the contrary: hate speech, racist remarks, encouragement to violence, threats – all have been recorded from the President downwards.25 We even have senior members of the defence forces threatening treason if ZANU(PF) loses. These comments and statements speak volumes as to the mind-set of ZANU(PF) and to the unreconstructed liberationwar ideology that underpins the party. It also indicates that there is, at the least, tacit condoning of the violence, but it is more likely that the violence is approved of and facilitated by the state. It is hard to conclude otherwise when even the President refers to the opposition in Parliament as ‘enemies’ rather than a loyal opposition, or condones the torture of members of the opposition as he did following the Peace Prayer meeting in 2007. The scale of the current violence is difficult to estimate but clearly approaches that of the 1980s, at least in the scale of the torture but not of the deaths. As indicated above, extra-judicial killings, disappearances, torture, and mass 23  Teaching Them a Lesson: A Report on the Attack on Zimbabwean Teachers (Harare: Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum, 2002); Political Violence and Intimidation of Zimbabwean Teachers, May 2012: (Harare: Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe, Report prepared by the Research and Advocacy Unit, 2012). 24  Preying on the ‘Weaker’ Sex: Political Violence against Women in Zimbabwe (Harare: Research and Advocacy Unit, Report produced by Idasa, the ICTJ and RAU, 2010); ‘When the Going Gets Tough, the Man Gets Going!’ Zimbabwean Women’s Views on Politics, Governance, Political Violence, and Transitional Justice (Harare: Research and Advocacy Unit, Report produced by RAU, Idasa and the ICTJ, 2010); No Hiding Place: Politically Motivated Rape of Women in Zimbabwe (Harare: Research and Advocacy Unit, Report prepared by RAU and the ZADHR, 2010). 25  Their Words Condemn Them: The Language of Violence, Intolerance and Despotism in Zimbabwe (Harare: Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum, 2007). 42 International Conference on Transitional Justice, Zimbabwe