1. INTRODUCTION: The serious crimes and violations that victims of politically motivated and state sanctioned violence were and have been subjected to in Zimbabwe are numerous, multiple and recurring1. From the colonial period 2 , to independence and present day Zimbabwe these crimes and violations are well documented in human rights reports3 and well known to those working on Zimbabwe. One peculiar aspect of this bleak situation in Zimbabwe is that the gross human rights violations have been committed with thousands of people killed, maimed, disappeared, properties burnt down, livestock stolen and livelihoods destroyed 4 . What remains lacking in Zimbabwe is an effective and final way for the nation to come to terms with this bleak past in a process that provides the truth, justice, reformed state and security institutions, remedies and guarantees of non - repetition5. Zimbabwe Civic Education Trust (ZIMCET) and Heal Zimbabwe Trust (HZT), two leading human rights organizations advocating for community justice in Zimbabwe believe that whether these challenges occurred in urban or rural settings or were committed by state agents or private individuals remedies must be accorded to victims6. In Zimbabwe, there is no doubt that real fears of being sent to prison abound for those who have been fingered in past gross human rights violations either as planners, financiers or as the actual See reports from the Heal Zimbabwe Trust on politically motivated and state sanctioned violence in Zimbabwe on www.healzimbabwe.co.zw 2 See NJ Kriger, Zimbabwe Guerrilla War: Peasant Voices, (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1992) at 156 and H Luc “Why Reconciliation Failed in Zimbabwe” http:/www.idea.int/pubications/reconciliation. 3 For example see the report on the Matabeleland masaacres in the late 1980s in See Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace and the Legal Resources Foundation (CCJP and LRF). Breaking the Silence, Building True Peace: A Report on the Disturbances in Matabeleland and the Midlands 1980 – 1988. LRF and CCJP, Harare, 1997 4 See, An Analysis of the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum Legal Cases 1998 – 2006‟ Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum June 2006, copy on file with author. The report outlines close to 15 000 cases of human rights violations that have been reported to the organization since 1998 and other reports from Amnesty International and Heal Zimbabwe Trust 5 Declaration of the Johannesburg Symposium, August 2003, in Civil Society and Justice in Zimbabwe Summary of Proceedings of a Symposium held in Johannesburg 11-13 August 2003. http://www.santep.co.za/satz/zim2003.htm (last accessed 10 January 2006). 6 Redress Trust, Implementing Victims‟ Rights, A Handbook on the Basic Principles and Guidelines on The Right to a Remedy and Reparation, March 2006 United Kingdom at 22. 1 1