3
expert on the matter of organised violence and torture, and has testified as such to the
Commission to Investigate the War Victims Compensation Fund, the Chidyausiku Commission.
The AMANI Trust was commended by the Commission for the utility of its submission and the
supporting documents.
2.
Organised violence and torture: an overview
Torture clearly represents an extreme form of exposure to violence, in that the effects are
premeditated and designed, the process usually involves attacks of both a physical and
psychological nature, and, most importantly, torture has an explicitly political purpose in a clear
socio-political context. Torture may be divided into different kinds, but usually it is very difficult to
separate them, and certainly it is common for different kinds of torture to be given at the same
time. For example, it is very common for people to be given beatings at the same time that they
are being verbally abused or threatened. Here there are two kinds of torture at the same time:
physical torture in the form of beatings and psychological torture in the form of abuse and threats.
The definition of torture contained in the United Nations Convention Against Torture is a four-part
definition as follows:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Severe pain and suffering, whether physical or mental;
Intentionally inflicted;
With a purpose;
By a state official or another acting with the acquiescence of the State.
This definition is widely used by health professionals in the diagnosis of torture, and is the basis
for the examination of torture victims outlined in the Istanbul Protocol, which is now the standard
protocol for examination of torture victims accepted by the United Nations High Commission for
Human Rights.
2.1
Physical methods of torture
Beatings of one kind or another are by far the most common methods of abuse. The beatings can
be generally all over the body, but some countries show a preference for a particular kind of
beating. Falanga, or beating the soles of the feet, has been frequently reported in Middle Eastern
countries, but there are reports of its use in African countries too. Electrical torture is popular
because of the extreme pain that it causes, as well as the few scars that it leaves. Perpetrators in
fact can use almost anything to abuse people. The point to grasp here is that any physical harm
caused deliberately is torture, and thus any procedure or object can become torture or be used in
torture.
2.2
Deprivation as torture
Deprivation is separated from psychological torture in the Southern African setting because it
happens very frequently that people are detained in circumstances that lead to ill treatment, but
where the intention is not to deliberately use the detention as torture. For the victim however the
effect of the deprivation can be the same as torture. The point here is that torture is not just a
matter of what was in the mind of the perpetrator or the person doing the detention, but it is also a
question of what the victim believed was happening.
This is not an exclusive list, but it covers the kinds of treatments that are forbidden by most
human rights conventions or conventions relating to the treatment of prisoners or detainees.
These can be very difficult to assess in many African countries where the above forms of ill
treatment are so common as to be felt that they are "normal" methods of treating prisoners.
Patients will frequently be so used to these methods, or know that they are routinely practiced, so
that they will not remark upon them for themselves.
AMANI TRUST: Beating your opposition. Torture during the 2002 Presidential campaign in Zimbabwe.