militias, former liberation fighters (and those masquerading as them), intelligence services and ruling-party supporters have been and continue to be used to maintain Zanu-PF. This current crisis is well documented. Leading activists, historians and commentators have also high-lighted the trampling of political and civil rights in the violent destruction of PF-Zapu 6 after Independence. Thousands of black Zimbabweans were murdered, maimed and tortured over a five-year period to 1987. The seeds of that conflict go back to the struggle for Independence itself. No less significant were the horrific abuses perpetrated by the white minority regime of Smith during UDI from 1965 onwards, and especially during the 1970s when thousands more black Zimbabweans suffered appalling loss of life and 7 property. The victims of this bloody past, which runs from the beginning of colonialism in 1890 to the most recent abuses, have never experienced justice. The history of Zimbabwe over the past 45 years in particular is one of great violence, and the current abuses are not some aberration but yet another manifestation of what has gone before. The civil society organisations represented at the symposium declared, in effect, that ALL the injustices of the past as well as those of the present need to be squarely confronted if impunity is to be replaced by accountability. This is a bold and ambitious position. It insists that the gross and systematic human rights violations committed before Independence be examined along with those committed after Independence, especially in the mid-80s and the past few years. It calls for perpetrators to be exposed and to acknowledge their wrongdoing, and for ways to be found to hold them accountable, including prosecutions. It seeks to put the right of victims to in 30 Countries: Zimbabwe Country Study, http://www.redress.org/publications/Audit/Zimbabwe.pdf 6 Ibid. 7 Ibid. 3 London, March 2003: