Overall, and despite 2008 being worse in most respects than 2002, there are great similarities in the two election periods. Firstly, the victims are overwhelmingly members of the MDC, with a much greater focus on actual members of the MDC in 2008. As was seen above, a large number of the victims in 2002 were reported as having “unknown” affiliations, insofar as they did not report an affiliation or were unwilling to disclose one if they did. In 2008, the victims were possibly more willing to disclose their affiliations, but it may also be that the violence was more specifically targeted in 2008, and certainly many of these victims’ affiliations were known to their abusers since they had been openly campaigning for the MDC or had played a role in the polling process: with the Harmonised Elections, and four polls – Presidential, Senate, House of Assembly, and local government – the MDC had to make public many more members of its structures than in any previous election. More simply put, the MDC members were at much greater risk in 2008 than in 2002, as more of them had to be public as officials and not merely voters. Secondly, the perpetrators in both elections were preponderantly supporters of the ZANU PF party, but, in 2008, two changes are noted. The ZRP are mentioned less frequently and the ZNA more frequently. ZANU PF Youth and ZANU PF supporters are frequently mentioned as operating in concert with “war veterans”, but it should be borne in mind that many “war veterans” are reported as belonging to either the ZRP or the ZNA, so that it is plausible that the “war veterans” were members of the uniformed forces, ZRP or ZNA, and even CIO, operating out of uniform. This deserves much closer investigation than hitherto, as most reports to date are largely anecdotal or speculative. Thirdly, the alleged violations are generally similar, but significantly more frequent in 2008, with the caveat that torture in 2008 may have been much higher than shown due to the tendency to classify serious beatings and physical abuse as assaults with intent to do grievous bodily harm. Closer inspection of the medical reports accompanying these reports may well show that torture was considerably higher in 2008 than in 2002. 6. Discussion This report began where the previous Human Rights Forum report left off: raising the allegation that crimes against humanity were committed in the June Presidential run-off. Other recent reports have strongly implicated the state in the perpetration of gross human rights violations, but without raising this charge, but nonetheless their evidence and conclusions have considerable bearing on this allegation.