The Zimbabwean Experience of Transitional Justice psychological torture have all been recorded, with torture and mass psychological torture comprising nearly ninety per cent of the total. This is all a matter of record. The effects of impunity As indicated earlier, Zimbabwe has an unenviable reputation for the use of impunity in dealing with its human rights violations. This pre-dates independence in 1980, and thus ZANU(PF) cannot be seen as the only miscreant in this respect, but ZANU(PF) has turned the use of organized violence and torture followed by impunity into an art form. This has disastrous effects upon the society, for, apart from the terrible consequences for the victims of knowing that their assailants will always walk free, the perpetrators learn that extreme violence is never punished. This can only act as encouragement to use violence. Indeed, many victims of the current violence have been informed quite baldly by their torturers that this would be the case, and the perpetrators were vindicated in their terrible prophecy by the imposition of the Clemency Order in October 2000. Indeed, the names of some of those who were pardoned by the Clemency Order now reappear as the names of people implicated in further torture in subsequent elections and by-elections. It is clear that impunity has had some minor beneficial consequences. It was the case in both 1980 and 1987 that violence ceased. In 1980, the use of impunity seemed to be the basis for peace, but it is also probable that the ending of the war was itself strong enough motivation for peace. Undoubtedly there was a need to reassure the soldiers from both sides that the peace would exclude personal accountability. With hindsight, it may be that the decision to declare impunity in 1980 was hasty, and prevented Zimbabweans from learning the real benefits of accountability. This may be so because it is evident that the impunity and the policy of reconciliation did not prevent the violence of the Gukurahundi, nor has it prevented the re-emergence of hate, racism and violence currently. It also seems to be the case that having impunity as a precedent encourages its further use, and perhaps even encourages the use of violence as a political problem-solving device. It even seems in the current violence that ZANU(PF) uses impunity as the final part of its ‘campaign’ strategy: there are statements on record of victims of the ZANU(PF) militia who were told that there would be no accounting for the violence, just as there was during the 1980s. International Conference on Transitional Justice, Zimbabwe 43