THE ZIMBABWE HUMAN RIGHTS NGO FORUM: 20 YEARS ON Tony Reeler Founding Chairperson of the Forum Who would have guessed when Eileen Sawyer, Mike Auret, Tony Reeler and Rhoda Immerman sat down in 1997 to talk about setting up a “human rights forum” that this would eventually become an organisation still fighting for human rights 20 years later? The original idea proposed by the Amani Trust was to create a space where organisations and citizens could come together and talk about human rights. However, the idea had to be translated into direct action the following year with the Food Riots, and the violations that were taking place. Zimbabwe HUMAN RIGHTS NGO Forum A hurried meeting at Synod House led to the establishment of an ad hoc group tackling the problems - killings, beatings, mass arrests, etc. The group finally called itself the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum, and was composed of the: Ÿ Amani Trust Ÿ Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace (CCJP) Ÿ Legal Resources Foundation (LRF) Ÿ Transparency InternationalZimbabwe (TI-Z) Ÿ Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) Ÿ Zimbabwe Human Rights Association (ZimRights) Ÿ Zimbabwe Women Lawyers Association (ZWLA) Ÿ Legal Aid Unit of the University of Zimbabwe The first actions were to characterise the work of the Forum: legal and psychosocial support to victims, careful documentation, preparation of reports, and both advocacy and lobbying. A preliminary report - Human Rights in Troubled Times: An Initial Report on Human Rights Abuses During and After Food Riots in January 1998 - was prepared and taken to the New York meeting of the UN Human Rights Committee. The result was the first of many uncomplimentary resolutions about the Zimbabwe government’s human rights record. This preliminary report was followed up by a more comprehensive investigation, and the filing of legal suits against the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) for unlawful killings, torture, assault, and 3 ZIMBABWE HUMAN RIGHTS NGO FORUM ANNUAL REPORT 2017