ZIMBABWE: FROM IMPUNITY TO ACCOUNTABILITY arbitrators in these processes, and for the application of customary law and rituals when appropriate. However, the concept and implementation of restorative justice is not without its own problems, and can be open to abuse and manipulation. It is suggested here that civil society needs seriously to explore the suitability or otherwise of restorative justice as one way of dealing with the widespread violations which have taken place in different parts of the country at different times in the past. A further method of dealing with some aspects of past human rights abuses is via the route of civil litigation – the suing of perpetrators for damages in the ordinary courts. This will be 33 discussed below when reparation is examined in more detail. It seems sensible, therefore, to see none of the various mechanisms as mutually exclusive. Zimbabweans ought to work towards finding a combination of ways and means to bring justice to victims of past abuses. A simple working hypothesis would be to see a TJRC as the chief mechanism for investigating, exposing, recording and documenting all the abuses of the past through all legitimate means, affording victims maximum opportunities to confirm and reveal their experiences in ways most conducive to their own well-being. Directly from the findings of a TJRC there could be prosecutions of the most serious perpetrators, with punishments being modified depending on the degree to which violators co-operated with and fully disclosed their participation in violations to the TJRC, and also depending on the extent to which they have engaged in meaningful reparation. At the same time, use might be made of restorative forms of justice, possibly more in rural that urban settings as the traditional structures in the former are stronger than in the latter; these forms would be aimed at dealing with the less heinous human rights violations, many of which have involved destruction of property rather than physical abuse. 33 See p. 34-35. 24