Davidson and Purohit: The Zimbabwean Human Rights Crisis: A Collaborative Approach to International Advocacy YALE HUMAN RIGHTS & DEVELOPMENT L.J. [Vol. 7 fought in Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia) by the black majority population, who had been deprived of their land and subjugated by European settlers since the late nineteenth century. After the Unilateral Declaration of Independence of 1965, by which the white minority regime in Rhodesia sought to break from Britain and ensure their own continuance in power, even more harsh measures were adopted and a system of racial segregation was rigorously implemented. Open armed conflict began in 1972, between the Rhodesian forces and Zimbabwean liberation groups, and over the course of the next seven years 30,000 to 80,000 people were killed as acts of violence and brutality became widespread throughout the country.' Following the negotiation of an end to the conflict and the holding of elections, Robert Mugabe and his Zanu-PF party came to power in1980.2 Rather than the backlash against the whites that many had feared, Mugabe preached reconciliation between the white and black populations. 3 The white commercial farmers, numbering only around 6000 but owning two thirds of the most productive land in the country, were reassured by this rhetoric and by the terms that had been written into the new constitution, protecting their right to hold on to their land for at least ten years. While the inequality of land ownership remained, in the post-independence honeymoon period, prospects for Zimbabwe's future looked extremely promising; its economy was strong, its population highly educated, and its infrastructure well developed. One part of Zimbabwe's infrastructure that was retained and effectively used by its new government was the state security machinery. The army, police and intelligence forces had broad powers under 4 emergency regulations that were re-enacted after independence. Moreover, the climate of impunity for state-sponsored violence and brutality that had prevailed prior to the inception of majority rule was perpetuated through the passing of amnesty laws and the continued service of security officers who had been involved in torture, killing, and 5 disappearances. While the lives of most Zimbabweans undoubtedly improved with independence and the formal dismantling of racial segregation, the new Zanu-PF government soon proved as ruthless as its predecessor in 1 See LAWYERS COMMITTEE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS, ZIMBABWE: WAGES OF WAR 17 (1986) [hereinafter WAGES OF WAR]. 2 See MARTIN MEREDITH, OUR VOTES, OUR GUNS 14 (2002). 3 At a speech on Apr. 17, 1980, Mugabe stated, "It could never be a correct justification that because the whites oppressed us yesterday when they had power, the blacks must oppress them today because they have power. An evil remains an evil whether practised by white against black or black against white." Id. at 15. 4 See Ronald Weitzer, In Search of Rdgime Security: Zimbabwe Since Independence, 22 J. MOD. AFR.STUD. 529, 532-33 (1984). 5 See LEGAL RESOURCES FOUNDATION & CATHOLIC COMMISSION FOR JUSTICE AND PEACE, 1 BREAKING THE SILENCE, BUILDING TRUE PEACE: A REPORT ON THE DISTURBANCES IN MATABELELAND AND THE MIDLANDS, 1980 TO 1989 (1997), at http://www.hsforumzim.com/membersreports/matrep/matrepintro.htm [hereinafter LEGAL RESOURCES FOUNDATION]. Published by Yale Law School Legal Scholarship Repository, 2004 3