responsible for politically motivated crimes committed during the January-July 2000 campaign period.8 In the lead up to the June 2008 presidential runoff elections, Human Rights Watch investigations found that the Joint Operations Command (JOC), comprising Mugabe and the heads of the security forces, was responsible for orchestrating widespread political violence throughout the country against the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). This violence resulted in the killings of hundreds of perceived MDC activists and supporters and the beating, torture and forced displacement of thousands more.9 As with previous state-sponsored political violence, the authorities failed to hold accountable those responsible, entrenching impunity within the security forces. In addition to the close political alliance between the leadership of ZANU-PF and the security forces, another driving force for political interference by the security forces has been the need to protect ill-gotten wealth and other vested economic interests. This has included control of revenue from Marange diamond fields where sections of the army directly own and run mining companies.10 The leadership of the security forces has also supported Mugabe and ZANU-PF’s continued dominance in government to protect them from prosecution for their role in rights abuses – as they have protected the security forces in past. Human Rights Watch investigations indicate that it is largely the security sector leadership that is openly partisan towards ZANU-PF and benefitting from political patronage; the rank and file of the security forces remains independent and professional. To ensure that ZANUPF partisanship is entrenched within the lower ranks of the security forces, the leadership of the security forces in May 2012 scrapped all recruitment requirements, opting instead for recruitment on the basis of subscription to vague national values which in practice are See Human Rights Watch, Our Hands Are Tied: Erosion of the Rule of Law in Zimbabwe, ISBN: 1-56432-404-4, November 2008, http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/zimbabwe1108.pdf. 8 9 Human Rights Watch, “Bullets for Each of You”: State-sponsored violence since Zimbabwe’s March 29 Elections, ISBN: 156432-324-2, June 2008, http://www.hrw.org/reports/2008/06/19/bullets-each-you. 10 See Human Rights Watch, Diamonds in the Rough: Human Rights Abuses in the Marange Diamond Fields of Zimbabwe, ISBN: 1-56432-505-9, June 2009, http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/zimbabwe0609web.pdf; see also, Global Witness, Financing a Parallel Government? The Involvement of the secret police and military in Zimbabwe’s diamond, cotton and property sectors, June 2012. Zimbabwe’s unity government could generate significant amounts of revenue from Marange diamonds, perhaps as much as US$200 million per month, if Marange and other mining centers were managed in a transparent and accountable manner. This revenue could fund a significant portion of the unity government’s economic recovery program, which would benefit ordinary villagers like the residents of Marange. THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM 10