• • • • rescue. We didn’t report to the DAs [district administrators] and Rural District Councils because they are all sanctioning the beatings.111 It’s useless to go to the police because they do nothing. All the police are ZANU. We did not go there.112 We went to report at K…police. It was useless. I spoke to the officer in charge. He said I must go back. He never wrote anything. We never saw any police after that. Four of them were arrested. But they paid fines and were released. 113 The police were here. They were the ones who took me to hospital. I had my statement taken to the police. They [the assailants] were not arrested. When the police were here, they took them on one side, talked to them and I don’t know what they were saying. Then the police just left.114 After we five farmers filed a joint application in court to declare the police commissioner and the war veterans in contempt, that was when the violence increased. I was held in my house on October 30, 2001. The police were waiting a kilometer away. My mechanic saw them sit there for two hours. The police officers waited until the war veterans went away. Then they came.115 These reports are supported by some individuals who have worked in government. One former district administrator, who said he had resigned because he did not like the increasing lawlessness of government policy, commented: I've seen a lot of that violence in Shurugwi where farmers have been beaten. Dockets have not been opened. The law enforcement agencies have been helpless. You get cases where they loot the homestead dry. 116 By early 2002, there were also increasing reports to human rights groups of beatings and torture carried out by the police.117 Generally, impunity seemed to continue unabated; though human rights groups had been able to obtain court orders for the police to arrest known perpetrators of violent crime, with success in getting the police to act in some areas (notably the Midlands).118 By contrast, where MDC activists have been accused of perpetrating violence, including in cases where they are alleged to have retaliated against harassment by war veterans, police action has usually been swift, especially by contrast with the inaction against Zanu-PF supporters alleged to have committed offenses.119 Several white farmers have been arrested on various criminal charges following clashes with people occupying farm land. 120 In one case noted by the Zimbabwe Human Rights Forum: 111 Human Rights Watch interview, villager B from communal area, Harare, July 16, 2001 Human Rights Watch interview, villager C from communal area, Harare, July 16, 2001 113 Human Rights Watch interview, villager D from communal area, Harare, July 16, 2001 114 Human Rights Watch interview, commercial farm, Beatrice, Mashonaland East, July 30, 2001 115 Amnesty International interview, farmer, Marondera, December 4, 2001. 116 Human Rights Watch interview, ex-district administrator, Matabeleland South, August 2, 2001 117 See Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum political violence reports for January and February 2002. 118 “Signs of progress – ZimRights,” U.N. Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN), January 22, 2002; Human Rights Watch telephone interviews with Zimrights and Amani Trust, February 12, 2002. 119 The Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum has reported on the selective implementation of justice where crimes allegedly perpetrated by MDC members result in swift arrests while no persons are arrested or tried in the case of crimes allegedly perpetrated by members of ZANU-PF. Politically motivated violence in Zimbabwe 2000-2001. A report on the campaign of political repression conducted by the Zimbabwean Government under the guise of carrying out land reform (Harare: Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum. August 2001); Enforcing the Rule of Law in Zimbabwe (Harare: Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum, September 2001). 120 In August 2001, twenty-one white farmers from the Chinhoyi area were arrested and charged with public violence in connection with alleged assaults on black settlers. 112 Human Rights Watch 25 March 2002, Vol. 14, No. 1 (A)