18 of bye-elections, all of which have attracted adverse comments from local and international election observers. Apart from the widespread dissatisfaction with the electoral processes in these elections, the MDC has mounted 37 challenges to the results of the 2000 Parliamentary Election, and a serious and credible challenge to the Presidential Election. The election petitions to date have shown prima facie evidence of gross human rights violations, and six of the results have been invalidated by the Zimbabwe High Court . Furthermore, it was instructive that not only was impunity imposed after both major elections, but that the witnesses in the elections petitions were harassed and suffered further human rights violations for their courage in testifying against ZanuPF . Thus it is possible to conclude that there have been gross human rights violations primarily during elections, and, more strongly, it can be concluded that there has been epidemic-scale torture and gross human rights violations in the pursuit of the unlawful maintenance of political power during peacetime. Quite obviously this analysis can only be a partial examination of the gross human rights violations and those responsible for these. It draws only on the published data, and can be no substitute for a full-blown commission of inquiry, but it raises very serious questions indeed about the responsibility of the ZanuPF government for gross human rights violations against the people of Zimbabwe. This is not the first time such concerns have been raised, and there is still no credible accounting for the gross human rights violations committed in the 1970s and the 1980s. It is evident that impunity has been an important factor in allowing the violence and torture to continue, and this impunity has been both formal, using Presidential amnesties, and informal through the failure to ensure that the Zimbabwe Republic Police enforce the law and their constitutional duty. This strongly supports the argument that the violence and torture was organized and condoned. This analysis shows the involvement of MPs, policemen, government officials, “war veterans”, and ZanuPF party supporters, and repeated involvement. It shows patterns of involvement around elections, and in areas in which severe threats to ZanuPF’s political hegemony have been posed. This analysis shows few changes between the two important recent elections in Zimbabwe – the Parliamentary Elections of 2000 and the Presidential Election of 2002 – and indicates one of the strategies behind ZanuPF’s campaign to maintain political power. Elsewhere I have argued that this picture makes a very strong prima facie case for crimes against humanity having been committed, and that prosecutions should consequently take place xxxiii. I have also argued that the timing and the nature of such prosecutions should be left to the posttransitional process in Zimbabwe: that Zimbabweans themselves should be consulted as to the course of action that they wish to take against the perpetrators of these horrible crimes. After all, we know who they are, and we know what they have done. But it may not be enough to leave the problem blindly to the future, and this is what this symposium is about: looking at the facts and deciding what are our options. Firstly, there is considerably more research that needs to be done. The evidence that I have summarized above is a tiny subset of the total number of cases that have actually occurred, and, by implication, covers only a small number of the total number of the perpetrators. We need to examine all the data, and we particularly will need to have access to official records – Cabinet minutes, Politburo minutes, CIO records, etc – in order to clearly lay out the chain of command, the instructions given, and the responsibilities taken for the gross human rights violations. Here there needs to be a very determined effort to secure records before they are destroyed. Bear in mind that records from the Smith regime were destroyed or moved before the transition occurred, and even in South Africa there was massive destruction of official records. Whilst it may be possible to reconstruct the total picture from the victims’ stories, the evidence from official The Perpetrators of Gross Human Rights Violations in the current violence in Zimbabwe.