Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum: Report on violence against peaceful protestors in Harare veterans remained peaceful. He said that their action simply constituted a form of protest against the rejection of the draft constitution.11 On 17 March 2000 the Commercial Farmers Union obtained a High Court action, which declared the invasions to be illegal, and ordered the police to evict the unlawful occupiers from the land within twenty-four hours.12 This High Court ruling was made with the consent of all the parties, including Dr Chenjerai Hunzvi. In his affidavit in connection with this case, Dr Hunzvi denied that he had been involved in organising or encouraging the farm invasions. Yet in an interview at the beginning of March Hunzvi had said that it was within the rights of the former combatants to invade the farms as they were bitter about the fact that the white farmers had engineered the rejection of the draft constitution which contained a provision for state acquisition of land without compensation.13 The police have not attempted to comply with this order, claiming that it would be impossible and counterproductive to do so.14 The Attorney-General has appealed against the order. Leaders of the war veterans have proclaimed that they would not comply with the court order but instead they will intensify the programme to occupy farms. There have also been reports of ZANU (PF) supporters using intimidation and threats of violence to pressurise people to attend ZANU (PF) rallies. There have also been reports of these supporters telling people that there will be war and killing in Zimbabwe if the MDC wins the election. 15 1.6 The reign of terror The ruling party has thus orchestrated a reign of terror by the war veterans and has very much encouraged a campaign of racial hatred against white farmers and other whites in Zimbabwe. A wave of lawlessness has swept across the country. The police have not been prepared or able to offer proper protection to persons who have been affected by this lawlessness. 2. The violence on 1 April 2000 in Harare 2.1 Events leading up to the march The National Constitutional Assembly, a grouping of various civic, religious and political organisations, had organised what it called a peace march in Harare city centre to start at 9.00 a.m. from the Causeway Post Office. This march had been widely publicised with notices in the newspapers and posters. According to Minister Dabengwa and the police, the NCA had been advised in writing to postpone their march because the war veterans had made prior arrangements to hold a “meeting” on this day. The police told the NCA not to proceed with its march because it feared that there would be a clash between the two groups. The NCA, however, maintain that they had notified the police well in advance of the intended march and that it had been given permission to go ahead. It was only later that it was advised by the police not to go ahead with the march because the war veterans had already been given permission to march on the same day following almost the same route as the NCA. The NCA asked when it could march if the march was postponed and was not given a satisfactory answer. It then offered to change the route to be followed on its march so that it would not encounter the war veterans. (When finally the march took place, the NCA organisers altered the route so as to avoid the route that was supposedly going to be followed by the war veterans.) The NCA believes that in fact the war veterans had not been planning to march at all until the NCA decided to hold its march. 16 On the day of the march, the police tried to prevent this march from taking place. The police cordoned off the entire city and mounted numerous roadblocks on the main roads leading to the city centre. Vehicles had been held up in long queues. The police searched all vehicles for weapons and turned back buses and other vehicles found to be carrying or suspected to be carrying persons who were intending to join in the protest march. All persons found wearing NCA or MDC tee shirts were turned back by the police. At a road block in Avondale a number of University of Zimbabwe students en route to the march were arrested for refusing to dismount from their commuter omnibuses and walk back to the University Campus. -4-