Anthony Reeler terms, and, when the story is told, it does become much easier to accept both realities. This is not the whole story, for only a truth commission or a criminal tribunal could allow the full story to be properly told. This particular story will try to tell the story of the present government’s use of violence against its citizens. Although it is mainly the story of ZANU(PF), it is also somehow the story of Rhodesia too, for we have gone back to another era in current Zimbabwe. The stories of Rhodesia and Zimbabwe cannot in reality be disentangled from each other, not least because many of the protagonists of violence are still political players. It also the case that much of the history from the initial settler occupation in the 19th century could also be viewed through a human rights lens and arguments made retrospectively about war crimes, crimes against humanity, and the like. History looks very different from the perspective of the sufferers and the losers, as Marx and others make us aware. However, I will confine this discussion to events after 1965, for 1965 represents an important legal break with the overall past: treason is different from colonial con­quest because it is a very deliberate affront to an agreed legal order, and this is what the Rhodesian Front government did in 1965. While we might argue about the moral basis of Rhodesian rule up until that point, no one would have argued that there was not a properly elected, legitimate government, albeit one that was racist and excluding of the majority of potential citizens. Equally, after the Uni­ lateral Declaration of Independence, no one was in any doubt that the govern­ment of Rhodesia and all its acts were illegal: those that sought to remove the ‘illegal’ government were legitimate, armed struggle was legitimate, and the failure of the Smith government to surrender rendered its own violence was illegitimate.5 The story of the 1970s If you had suffered a human rights violation during the 1970s Liberation War, what might have happened to you? This question, in essence, has been asked of many thousands of Zimbabweans over the years, and we now know a number of interesting things about the answers and the Liberation War.6 5  For the early history of political violence, see L. Sachikonye, When a State Turns on its Citizens: Institutionalized Violence and Political Culture (Auckland Park: Jacana, 2011). 6  See Survivors of Torture and Organised Violence from the 1970s War of Liberation (Harare: Amani Trust, 1998); See also A. P. Reeler, ‘Surviving torture: A Zimbabwean experience’, in D. Irmler (ed.), Old Ways – New Theories: Traditional and Contemporary Family Therapy: Connect in Africa (Harare: Connect, 1995); A. P. Reeler, ‘Epidemic violence and the community: A Zimbabwean case study’, Community Development Journal (1998), 33: 128–39. 32 International Conference on Transitional Justice, Zimbabwe