TORTURE IN ZIMBABWE, PAST AND PRESENT I.2 . Practice of Torture: Context, Occurrence, Responses A. The Practice of Torture Before independence in 1980, torture was systematic and widespread particularly during the UDI period from 1965 onwards and especially during the 1970s when the guerrilla soldiers of Zanla and Zipra escalated their war against the white-minority RF regime. Captured and suspected guerrillas, as well as their suspected supporters especially in the rural areas where the war raged, were mercilessly treated in order to extract confessions and information as well as a deliberate tactic aimed at intimidation and deterrence. This occurred within the context of institutionalised racism where the guerrillas and their supporters were black and the security forces were white or white-controlled. Torture was but one of the many forms which gross human rights violations took during the independence struggle. 18 Numerous commentators then and since, 19 as well as human rights reports at the time, have catalogued the extreme cruelty meted out by the Smith security forces on civilians.20 The time since independence in 1980 can be divided into four 21 fairly distinct periods: did in effect was incorporate into Zimbabwean law a norm of international law from European human rights jurisprudence, where a provision of the European Convention is almost identical to section 15. This interpretive approach to the incorporation of human rights norms into domestic law focuses on the norms and not any particular treaty or convention: see Pearson Nherere, The limits of litigation in human rights enforcement, Legal Forum (Harare) Vol 6, No 3, (Sept 1994), p. 27-36. In S v A Juvenile 1989 (2) ZLR 246 (S) Dumbutshena CJ held that Zimbabwean courts are free to import into the interpretation of Section 15 (1) of the Declaration of Rights interpretations of similar provisions in international and regional human rights instruments. 18 The injustices and suffering caused during the ninety years of colonial rule which began in 1889, and in particular during the last 15 years of colonialism (the UDI period), have been well documented, especially the abuses of the 1970s. The Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace (CCJP) in the country played an important role in this process of documentation, as one of the few independent human rights organisations active during the UDIprovoked armed liberation struggle. They were able to collect evidence of gross human rights abuses committed during this time, and were able to publicise these abuses abroad. CCJP facilitated the international publication of several reports, including The Man in the Middle (1975), The Civil War in Rhodesia (1976), and Rhodesia, The Propaganda War (1977). After independence, CCJP archival material was also used to document the history of the 1970s: see Reaching for Justice (1992), a history of CCJP, published by Mambo Press; also Caught in the Crossfire, a CCJP video detailing the plight of rural Zimbabweans during the liberation war, released the same year. Up to 60,000 people were killed during the war, all but a few thousand of whom were black. Thousands more were injured and maimed, and many still carry the physical and psychological scars of torture. See also Racial Discrimination and Repression in Southern Rhodesia, International Commission of Jurists, Geneva, 1976, pp. 62-65. 19 The Amani Trust in Zimbabwe, established in the country in 1993, has been at the forefront of documenting torture and other human rights violations both before and since independence. Amani has retrospectively examined the UDI period: see Survivors of Torture and Organised Violence from the 1970s War of Liberation , Amani, Harare (1998). See also An Investigation into the Sequelae of Torture and Organised Violence in Zimbabwean War Veterans, A.P. Reeler and M. Mupinda, Amani, published in Legal Forum (Harare) Vol 8, No. 4, (December 1996), at pp. 12 -26; The Prevalence and Nature of Disorders due to Torture in Mashonaland Central province, Zimbabwe, A.P. Reeler, P. Mbape, J. Matshona, J. Mhetura, and E. Hlatywayo, Torture, 11, (2001), pp. 49; The Psychosocial Effects of Organised Violence and Torture: A Pilot Study Comparing survivors and their Neighbours in Zimbabwe, A.P. Reeler and J. Mhetura, Journal of Social Development in Africa, 15, (2000), pp. 137169. 20 These included those a former Rhodesian soldier has listed: beatings, suspensions, electric shocks, suffocations in water and other methods of asphyxiation, mock executions and arbitrary killings; see White Man, Black War, Bruce Moore-King, (1986), Harare, Baobab Press. 21 In an interesting and important review by one of Zimbabwe’s top practising advocates, Adrian de Bourbon SC, the post-independence period is examined from the perspective of litigating human rights. He divides the past 25 years into three periods: “ … [T]he human rights position in Zimbabwe falls into three broad time groups. Firstly, there is the period between Independence and roughly mid-1985, covering in the main the period when Chief Justices Fieldsend and Georges presided over the Supreme Court. The second period, which to my mind was the golden era of human rights in Zimbabwe, covers the time from mid-1985 to mid-2001 when the Supreme Court was headed by Chief Justices Dumbutshena and Gubbay. The third period, which is still current, commenced in mid2001 when the Supreme Court fell to be headed by Chief Justice Chidyausiku.”See Litigation – human rights in 4