TORTURE IN ZIMBABWE, PAST AND PRESENT elections. 35 In 2004 there was no significant improvement in the observation of human rights, although there was a drop in reports of torture and organised violence in the few months immediately preceding the March 2005 general parliamentary election. 36 During the period July 2001 to November 2004 inclusive one human rights coalition reported 2,742 allegations of torture, comprising the single largest category of gross human rights violations (24%) of all types of violation reported to it. 37 The decline in reported torture just before March 2005 reflected a change in tactics on the part of the Government. 38 Torture takes many forms and is perpetrated by the police, army, Government militias, the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO), Government-organised war veterans and party members. Beatings, rape and electric shocks are some of the methods used. One major problem within the current situation is that increasingly ‘irregulars’ commit the abuses. They may be in civilian clothes and their identity may be unknown, or they may be youth militia brought into a specific area from outside so that they will not be easily recognised, or they may be dressed up in police or military uniforms to further hide their identities. 39 B. Domestic Responses During UDI, virtually anything done in defence of the Smith regime was lawful. 40 At independence in 1980, no attempt was made to deal with the gross human rights violations which had taken place during the liberation struggle. It was part of the Lancaster House settlement that there would be an all-round and total amnesty: nobody would be held accountable for anything done in the past, including atrocities, torture and other human rights crimes, whether committed by those who 35 See Zimbabwe: Tortuous Patterns Destined to Repeat Themselves in Upcoming Election Campaign – Preliminary Study of Trends and Associations in the Pattern of Torture and Organised Violence in Zimbabwe, July 2001December 2003, REDRESS, November 2004 - http://www.redress.org/publications/ZimbabweNov2004.PDF This report was based on the data contained in the Monthly Violence Reports of the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum which has been reporting monthly totals of cases of organised violence and torture since July 2001. 36 See Zimbabwe: The Face of Torture and Organised Violence – Torture and Organised Violence in the Run-up to the 31 March 2005 General Parliamentary Election, REDRESS, March 2005 http://www.redress.org/publications/ZimbabweReportMar2005.PDF. 37 Ibid, p.7. The total number of reported gross human rights violations for the same period was 11,456. Another report put the figure of human rights violations since 2001 as high as 300,000: see Solidarity Peace Trust (2004), "NO WAR IN ZIMBABWE". An account of the exodus of a nation's people, November 2004, HARARE & SOUTH AFRICA: SOLIDARITY PEACE TRUST. 38 There have been a large number of national and international reports and statements highly critical of the run-up to the elections, and the election itself. Those international observers who were allowed into the country were to a large extent ‘hand-picked.’ See the following national reports: Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights: Report on March 2005 Parliamentary Elections (Zimbabwe), April 2005; National Constitutional Assembly (NCA): The 2005 Parliamentary Elections. Flawed, Unfree and Unfair! April 2005; Idasa Press Statement, 3 April 2005; Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe 30 March 2005: Statement on the Media Environment in Zimbabwe Prior to the March 2005 Elections; Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN): “Statistical pattern analysis and hypothesis testing of the 2005 parliamentary election in Zimbabwe” , 22 April 2005. Some international reports before the election include Amnesty International: Zimbabwe: An assessment of human rights violations in the run up to the March 2005 parliamentary elections, 15 March, 2005; Human Rights Watch: Not a Level Playing Field: Zimbabwe’s Parliamentary Elections in 2005, March 21, 2005; International Bar Association Human Rights Institute, Free and Fair? 25 March 2005. 39 Although the numbers killed have been small compared to the past, in many ways the population is suffering more than at any time previously, as the endemic torture and other forms of State-sponsored violence are being perpetrated in the context of economic collapse, mass hunger, and the HIV-Aids pandemic. There are no official figures of those killed in political violence, but human rights groups estimate that over the past seven years over a thousand have died. The actual figure could be much higher as parts of the rural areas are now inaccessible to NGOs and indeed to anyone who is not overtly pro-Zanu-PF. 40 Under the Indemnity and Compensation Act 45 of 1975, which was retroactive to 1972: see below III. 1.1. 8