7 RECOMMENDATIONS There are many recommendations that can be made in the aftermath of 2008 and all the previous decades, and it is worth being practical. Whether Zimbabwe is in transition or is still in a pre-transition phase, it remains the case that those accused of gross human rights violations are still in power, and hence the immediate recommendations must aim primarily at creating peace and an absence of further violence. The issue of crimes against humanity must wait for a future in which there is greater acceptance in Africa that serious violations have taken place in Zimbabwe, and, in all probability, will have to await the judgement of the Zimbabwean people themselves. In all complex emergencies, a priority must be to stabilize the situation. If this is within the compass of the national political power, this is the best start, but, in the case of Zimbabwe, will require an assertive international response, and this lays an immediate responsibility upon SADC. Here it is critical that SADC acknowledge what has happened since 2000, and ceases to downplay the violence that has taken place as it has done in the past. It is no longer acceptable to take the view that the crisis in Zimbabwe is merely economic and humanitarian: the complex emergency that is Zimbabwe has certainly seen the destruction of the economy in all its aspects, but it has also seen mass violence and the wholesale disruption of its social capital. People have become refugees, as well as internally displaced; families and communities have become polarized and antagonistic; and hundreds of thousands have been traumatized through deliberate violence by the state or its proxies. It is beyond the scope of this review, which was concerned with torture and gross human rights violations, to propose the strategy by which all the ills may be healed, and hence the recommendations will focus on dealing with torture and its remediation. Creating Peace A fundamental pre-requisite for peace will the placing all security forces, as well as any militia, under complete civilian control; The structure of the National Security Council should be immediately reformed to exclude the presence of any serving security chiefs, and should be solely composed of members of the Unity Government; Civilian policing must be enforced with urgency, and the ZRP should no longer be entitled to carry weapons of war, except in states of emergency which shall be the sole prerogative of Parliament to declare. Creating healing As has been indicated in Article 7 of the GPA, national healing must be a priority; It must be recognized that reconciliation is a goal and not a process in the strategy for healing, and that healing is a prerequisite for reconciliation; Any system aiming to provide healing for the victims of torture and other gross human rights violations must conform to the best practice principles well-known in dealing with complex emergencies: The co-ordination of mental health care; Good basic assessment of the problems and the establishment of a monitoring process; Implementation of an early intervention phase; Utilisiation of the de-facto mental health system; Emphasis on training and education; Implementation, management, and the of monitoring of a culturally competent system of care; – Stress on ethics and community participation; – Care to prevent negative mental health consequences in mental health providers; Commitment to outcome assessment and research. Creating justice All healing will need to be accompanied by justice for the victims, and such justice should be predicated on the acceptance of four basic rights for the victims: The Right to Know; The Right to Justice: The Right to Non-Recurrence; Page 39