TORTURE IN ZIMBABWE, PAST AND PRESENT massive scale, and although many top Zanu-PF were involved, the Report was cast in such a way as to put most of the blame on the chaotic system of assessments and payments rather than on criminal activity.199 What did emerge was that between 1980 and 1997, about 52,400 persons had claimed compensation under the Act, and a total of Z$1.4 billion 200 had been paid to successful claimants; however, the Report also found that over 95 % of the claimants were excombatants, rather than civilians who had been caught up in the war.201 Only a tiny minority of genuine civilian victims had received compensation, and the bulk of the money had gone in inflated claims to ex-Zanla soldiers, often for very minor injuries.202 The other aspect of the War Victims Compensation Act [Chapter 11:06] is that it does not apply to any victims of the Gukurahundi. Human Rights NGOs have repeatedly called for the Act to be amended to cater for the gross violations which took place during the post independent 1982-1988 low-intensity civil war, but the Government has refused to do so. There is therefore no Government reparation scheme for victims of human rights abuses committed after 1980, or for victims of crime in general 203. VI. REMEDIES FOR TORTURE IN THIRD COUNTRIES VI.1 . Prosecution of Acts of Torture Committed in 3 rd Countries A. The Criminal Law Zimbabwe has not acceded to the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, neither has it acceded to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, 1998. It has therefore not enacted any implementing legislation relating to those treaties regarding international human rights crimes committed outside of the country. However, in 2000 Parliament passed the Genocide Act [Chapter 9: 20] giving legal effect in Zimbabwe to the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. The Act and the Convention defines genocide as “ an act committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group,”and provides penalties under the country’s laws for killing people, which are the same as for common law murder, and for any other act of genocide, which is life imprisonment. Jurisdiction may also be exercised pursuant to the Geneva Conventions Act [Chapter 11:06] as amended over any person regardless of nationality in relation to grave breaches of the four 1949 Geneva Conventions or the 199 Many persons regarded the Report’s findings as exonerating the top Zanu-PF officials by blaming a handful of civil servants. A few beneficiaries were prosecuted and others were called upon to re-fund monies received, but the whole affair was soon overtaken by the general crisis which gripped the country. 200 At the current parallel rate in Zimbabwe, this is about US$1.4 million. 201 Page 9 of the Report. 202 For example the Commissioner of Police, Augustine Chihuri, had received Z$138,645 for ‘toe dermatitis of right and left feet’: p.3 of Annexure I to the Report. 203 See Breaking the Silence (supra) at p. 190, where reference is made to payments which the Government made in 1994 and 1996 arising from only two of the many people who had gone missing during the Gukurahundi. The two cases are examined in the context of the law of prescription (statutes of limitations), and the government’s official response to the 52nd session of the UN Commission on Human Rights; see also above fn. 55. 40