However, it is the reports of the involvement of the army, militia, war veterans, and the police that gainsay any view that this is mere political violence, and indicate the following: • all reports show that the violence has been disproportionately one-sided, and against the MDC and other groups not supporting ZANU PF; • all reports show that the violence attributed to ZANU PF is different from the violence attributed to the other groups, both in the scale and in the nature; • the violence attributed to ZANU PF shows evidence of systematic torture, abductions, disappearance, summary executions and extra-judicial killings, and this is very rarely the case with violence attributed to other groups such as the MDC; • the systematic torture shows a strong association with officials of the State – members of Parliament, the police, the CIO, and other officials – as well as an association with groups closely affiliated to the ZANU PF political party – “war veterans”, youth militia, ZANU PF youth, ZANU PF supporters, ZANU PF party officials, etc; • the evidence shows there are plausible allegations of the involvement of senior party and government leaders, and there are many statements from victims implicating such persons; • there is no, or very little evidence, of any attempt by the Executive or organs of the State to proactively deal with the violence; • the evidence suggests, to the contrary, that there are an enormous number of examples of hate speech, and encouragement to violence and lawlessness by virtually all members of the Executive, the Parliament, the party, and the supporters of the ZANUPF party. This is no new pattern, as it has been observed previously in the 2000 and 2002 elections, and before that in the violations that took place between 1982 and 1987 in Matabeleland. Thus the allegations that the ZANU PF government has committed crimes against humanity are nothing new, and indeed were alleged in respect of the forced removal of over 700 000 civilians that took place in 2005 under the government’s so-called Operation Murambatsvina. However, apart from a few international human rights bodies, such as the International Bar Association, there has been little inclination to address these very serious allegations, and African countries have been obstructive where attempts have been made to obtain an audience for these allegations: the South African government, for example, has repeatedly blocked attempts to discuss Zimbabwe’s human rights record at the United Nations both in the Human Rights Council, and the Security Council. 10