4 interests. Thus, the struggle was against the old interests, now supported by their “sell out” supporters, evoking the problems of the 1970s and the roles played by Bishop Muzorewa and Ndabaningi Sithole. Thus, a liberation war campaign could be used internally against these enemies, and logically the “war veterans” were exceptionally well equipped ideologically to drive this. 4. The use of militia A crucial component of the strategy for maintaining political power was the use of militia, and especially the youth as militia. But why the youth in particular? Since 1980 the demographic character of Zimbabwe has shifted very dramatically. Notwithstanding the depredations of HIV and AIDS, more than 50% of the population is under the age of 18, which means that a very large proportion of the population was not alive during the Liberation War, and has no recollection of either the racism of the previous government or the effects of colonial policies. Since 1980, education, at least for primary school, has largely been free, but the promises of an education have not been matched in the aspirations of most young Zimbabweans. During the 1900s, under the economic structural adjustment programme voluntarily adopted by the Mugabe regime, the situation worsened considerably, especially for the young and the rural. The proportion of school leavers obtaining jobs has shrunk annually, as has the economy. The reality for most young Zimbabweans is the prospect of leaving school without a job, and little likelihood of getting one. In effect, there has been a huge disaffected population, without any basic allegiance to the philosophy of “liberation”, and amenable to the persuasions of any opposition group. And certainly, since the government of the day always bears the responsibility for the misfortunes of the country, this was a group that might well turn against ZanuPF. Thus, there was a careful process of engaging the youth, and then of incorporating them into the political campaigning machine, as well as using them for other areas of political control. This involved at least three distinct phases, as summarised below:  The First Phase: using the “War Veterans” The first phase of the militia programme involved the use of the “war veterans”. This first phase may have only been intended to last as long as the Parliamentary Election which ZanuPF considered they could win overwhelmingly, but the results of the election clearly indicated that the Presidential Election would be exceedingly difficult for Mugabe. Furthermore, the very large number of election petitions (39), with the possibility of a losing a large number of bye-elections if the MDC petitions were successful, meant that the hold on political power was still threatened seriously.  The Second Phase: Training and Recruiting The second phase was mostly a formal consolidation of the processes involved in the first phase. It was evident from the scanty information available that a degree of training had been given to the young men recruited into the militia groups during the Parliamentary elections. This training was mainly in the nature of modelling through exposure: that is, the youth were exposed to methods of torture, running pungwes and rallies, carrying out military-type actions in the community, using mass psychological techniques such as slogans and songs. From the reports this exposure strongly resembled the types of tactics seen both in the Liberation War and also in the Gukurahundi period in the 1980s. The Perpetrators of Gross Human Rights Violations in the current violence in Zimbabwe.