As can be seen from Table 11, the army are identified as perpetrators acting alone in a high number of cases, but it is also evident that the police as a whole are the most commonly identified perpetrators. Table 11 The police and army identified as perpetrators Perpetrator Army Uniformed Branch Riot Squad CID Support Unit ZANU(PF) PISI CIO Acting alone 75 84 31 15 14 7 2 0 With others 39 27 23 12 4 0 0 1 Total 114 111 54 27 18 7 2 1 Percentage 39.18 38.14 18.56 9.28 6.19 2.41 0.69 0.34 As indicated above, the cases mounted in the Zimbabwe High Court do corroborate the more general picture emerging from data in the monthly Political Violence reports of the Human Rights Forum. There are a few additional aspects that are felt worthy of more detailed analysis, and these deal with the issues of detention, torture, shootings, the targeting of political opponents of the government, and the apparently central role of the Zimbabwe Republic Police in perpetrating human rights violations. 2.4 Associations with political events and issues As was noted in the earlier analysis of the data from the monthly Political Violence reports, there is a strong association between human rights violations and political events, especially elections, but not exclusively so. Hence, this association was examined in respect of the civil litigation cases, where 132 cases (45%) could be classified as ‘political’ in that the plaintiffs asserted that their rights were violated because they were members of a political party or a civic group seen to be opposed to the government (Table 12). Table 12 Association of frequency of violations with political events 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 Non-political (n = 159) 25.8%* 1.9% 6.3% 6.3% 12.6% 27.7% 15.1% 2.5% 1.9% Political (n = 132) 0 1.5% 0 11.4% 12.1% 59.9%* 10.6% 4.6% 0 *χ2: 1998 (39.62; P = 0.005); 2003 (30.6; P = 0.005) There were no differences in the years between the two groups, with only 1998 and 2003 showing significant differences, and 2003 is accounted for mainly by cases from Buhera. There were several cases of politically motivated arson in Buhera and the police assaulted and tortured the alleged accused. 13