42 rights violations and ill-treatment, and produced a report on the riots73, which was forwarded to the President and Parliament in support of the request for an independent commission of inquiry. There was no response from either the President or parliamentarians, and thus the Human Rights Forum took the step of lobbying the UN Human Rights Committee at its meeting to consider the implementation by Zimbabwe of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. When the Committee produced its final report in September 1998, it made a strong statement endorsing the call by ZHRNF for an independent commission of inquiry. The only other official report on the Food Riots, that issued by the ZRP General Headquarters, made no mention of human rights abuses or even the scale of injuries suffered. With the complete lack of official response, and the total disregard for the recommendations of the UN Human Rights Committee, the Human Rights Forum then issued a more detailed report on the Food Riots. This report was based upon field research, media and other reports, and the case files of victims who had elected to sue the government for wrongful injury74. A particular concern in this second report was to describe the amount of torture that had been inflicted on the citizens on Harare mostly. This report took considerable pains to test the information obtained from the courts and the media reports against interviews in the community, and here the suburb of Mabvuku was chosen. As was seen in the report, there was marked agreement between the findings from the community interviews and the public data, and torture was found to be very common. Torture can be defined according to various different definitions, the most common of which are the definitions contained in the UN Convention Against Torture and Other Forms of Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment and Punishment (UN.1984) and the Declaration of Tokyo (WMA.1975). According to this definition, a very large number of persons experienced torture during the Food Riots, and, as the Human Rights Forum commented: The victims from the Food Riots in 1998 were different in many ways to those from the 1970s War of Liberation. In most respects their treatment was less severe than those from the Liberation War, and was confined to a single episode of torture or injury due to gunshot wound. However, the data given by the Human Rights Forum report did support the claims that torture had been inflicted and that gross human rights violations had taken place. This report was subsequently validated by the results of the court cases that took place, where the majority of the claims were upheld by the courts and damages awarded. In some of the cases, the judges made very strong statements about the use of torture and indiscriminate and irresponsible use of firearms75. The most obvious conclusion was, however, that the Zimbabwe government had allowed the use of much greater than “minimum force”, and that torture had been perpetrated on a wide scale by government 73 74 75 See Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum (1998), Human Rights in Troubled Times: An Initial Report on Human Rights Abuses During and After Food Riots in January 1998, HARARE: ZIMBABWE HUMAN RIGHTS NGO FORUM. See Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum (1999), A Consolidated Report on the Food Riots 19—23 January 1998, HARARE: ZIMBABWE HUMAN RIGHTS NGO FORUM. See again Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum (1999), A Consolidated Report on the Food Riots 19—23 January 1998, HARARE: ZIMBABWE HUMAN RIGHTS NGO FORUM. IDASA: Zimbabwe at the Cross-Roads: Views of Zimbabwean citizens on democracy and transitional justice.