9 increasingly targets during 2001 and 200213. The effects upon the personal lives of the teachers and their families are only part of the story, as the attacks and subsequent displacement had powerful effects upon their pupils and the communities in which the schools were placed 14. Closure of schools and the consequent disruption of pupils’ education were one obvious consequence, but added to this was the effect of pupils witnessing the humiliation and torture of their teachers. There was also the consequence of pupils being “taught” political correctness, and the very high possibility of them experiencing considerable fear if their parents were teachers or supporters of the MDC. It is not difficult to appreciate all the possible consequences of targeting teachers and using schools as places of torture and political indoctrination. The National Youth Service Programme: These structures of “informal repression” have been given greater vigour through an official programme dealing with the youth, the National Youth Service scheme. This began as a formalization of the first phase, as described above, and was the brain child of the former Governor of Mashonaland Central, Border Gezi. Gezi first mooted the scheme in late 2000, and the first training camps were established in 2001, with the first graduates emerging in October 2001. Perhaps no aspect of the current Zimbabwe crisis has attracted so much controversy as thus scheme. The government and its supporters see the scheme as a valuable way of engaging the unemployed youth, giving them vocational skills, and ensuring that they have a patriotic view of their country. The opponents see the scheme rather differently, and argue that the scheme is a blunt process of indoctrination, involving learning hate and violence 15. Here see Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum (2002), Teaching them a lesson. A report on the attack on Zimbabwean teachers, HARARE: ZIMBABWE HUMAN RIGHTS NGO FORUM. 13 14 The Daily News, for example, carried stories on the attacks on teachers. On 20 June 2001, the newspaper reported that 32 teachers had been fired and 8 headmen deposed in Buhera by war vets and ZanuPF supporters for supporting the MDC. Later, the same newspaper carried a story on a report from the Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe that teachers forced to pay protection fee, with 107 000 affected, and thousands had been reported kidnapped or raped (Daily News, 5 September 2002). See Solidarity Peace Trust (2003), National youth service training. “ shaping youths in a truly Zimbabwean manner”.An overview of youth militia training and activities in Zimbabwe, October 2000 – August 2003, SOUTH AFRICA & ZIMBABWE: SOLIARITY PEACE TRUST. 15