The Zimbabwean Experience of Transitional Justice Firstly, if you were Shona, you might have spent seven years, or possibly eight, in a ‘protected village’ – not by choice but under compulsion – and would have lived in near refugee-camp conditions, with inadequate sanitation, a poor diet, and a high risk of being killed or maimed. By 1977, nearly 750,000 Zim­ babweans were confined to such villages, which is a significant percentage of the then population of about five million.7 Of course, hundreds of thousands more were in refugee camps in neighbouring countries, and there you might have survived an attack on the camp. Tens of thousands died in such a way, and many of the survivors remain deeply traumatized by their experience. Such experiences alone can lead to life-long psychological disorder and disability. There is ample evidence that this is so from the survivors of Chimoio, Nyadzonia, Tembwe, and Camp Freedom: the massacres that took place in these camps have left many survivors disabled and traumatized.8 Secondly, you might have been tortured. This was a high risk for everyone, since political loyalty was demanded by all sides. However, it is worth pointing out that no evidence has been found to show that any white person was ever tortured at all: some were summarily executed, but torture was not a weapon used by the liberation forces against their white enemies. This is remarkable in such a bitter war. You could be accused of disloyalty and betrayal by either side: whether rightly or wrongly, this was a very common experience for many rural Zimbabweans. If the Rhodesians got you, then the torture could range from all the more sophisti­ cated horrors of electrical shock, mock drowning, suspension and drugs, to good old-fashioned slaps, punches, kicks and beatings with sticks. It could have been done by anyone, especially after the Smith government passed the Indemnity and Compensation Act in 1975. Since the Act gave prospective impunity, it is scarcely surprising that there were few inhibitions in using torture for obtaining information. If you were an active supporter of the liberation army, then you ran the risk of this happening on multiple occasions. This was less likely for those who fell foul of the guerrillas than for the Rhodesian forces. Some people experienced torture at the hands of the security forces on more than six occasions. If the guerrillas got you, it might be less sophisticated, but more likely to be 7  See Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace, The Man in the Middle (Salisbury: CCJP, 1975); Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace, Civil War in Rhodesia (Salisbury: CCJP, 1976). 8  See A. P. Reeler and M. Mupinda, ‘An investigation into the psychological sequelae of torture and organised violence in Zimbabwean war veterans’, Legal Forum (1996), 8: 12–27. International Conference on Transitional Justice, Zimbabwe 33