Nonetheless, the data from July 2001 onwards do provide a good understanding of the prevailing context in Zimbabwe over the past five years, and it is obvious that the problems are considerably greater than can be easily addressed by civil litigation for damages. 1.2 Elections It has been a frequent comment by human rights groups and election observer groups that gross human rights violations seem to be prevalent during election periods. The Human Rights Forum itself has issued a number of reports making such allegations,13 and at least one international human rights body has alleged that human rights violations are more common during elections than at other times.14 Other international bodies have issued reports corroborating the local reports on torture during elections,15 and it is noteworthy that the MDC itself challenged 37 results in the 2000 Parliamentary elections, as well as the result of the Presidential Election in 2002.16 These challenges were based almost entirely on allegations of human rights violations by candidates and members of the ruling ZANU(PF) party. Below, the relationship between violations and elections is briefly examined. When the data from the Forum’s monthly Political Violence reports were classified according to whether the month was an election month (or a month in which a significant national political event occurred, such as a national stay-away), this gave a total of 40 months without elections or national events, and 17 months in which there were national elections, by-elections, or national events such as the stayaway of June 2003. Interestingly, the 40 months without elections gave a total of 9,549 violations (56.5% of the total), while the 17 months in which there were elections or national events had a total of 7,352 violations (43.5% of the total). On average, election months produced 432 violations per month, while non-election months produced only 239. There clearly is a significant association between elections and human rights violations! As can be seen from Table 3, torture, political discrimination, murders, death threats, assaults, and abductions were significantly more frequent during election periods, whilst unlawful arrests and detentions, interference with freedoms, displacements, and disappearances are significantly more common in the other months. This would seem to speak to two different but complementary systems of repression in operation: one that is focused upon elections (and the critical issue of political power), and another that is focused on the suppression of dissent. 13 See: Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum, Report on Election-related Political Violence in Chikomba (Harare: The Human Rights NGO Forum, 2001); Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum, Who Was Responsible? A Consolidated Analysis of Preelection Violence in Zimbabwe (Harare: The Human Rights NGO Forum, 2001); Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum, Are They Accountable? Examining Alleged Violators and their Violations pre and post the Presidential Election March 2002 (Harare: The Human Rights NGO Forum, 2002); Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum, Human Rights and Zimbabwe’s Presidential Election: March 2002 (Harare: The Human Rights NGO Forum, 2002); Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum, It’s the Count that Counts: Food for Thought: Reviewing the Pre-election Period in Zimbabwe, March 2005 (Harare: The Human Rights NGO Forum, 2005); Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum, Of Stuffed Ballots and Empty Stomachs: Reviewing Zimbabwe’s 2005 Parliamentary Election and Post-Election Period, July 2005 (Harare: The Human Rights NGO Forum, 2005). 14 See Redress, Zimbabwe: Tortuous Patterns Destined to Repeat Themselves in Upcoming Election Campaign: Preliminary Study of Trends and Associations in the Pattern of Torture and Organised Violence in Zimbabwe, July 2001 – December 2003 (London: Redress Trust, 2004); Redress, Zimbabwe: The Face of Torture and Organised Violence: Torture and Organised Violence in the Runup to the 31 March 2005 General Parliamentary Election (London: Redress Trust, 2005). 15 See Amnesty International, Zimbabwe: Terror Tactics in the Run-up to the Parliamentary Elections, June 2000 (London: Amnesty International, 2000); IRCT, Organised Violence and Torture in Zimbabwe, 6th June 2000 (Copenhagen and Harare: IRCT and Amani Trust, 2000); IRCT, Organised Violence and Torture in Zimbabwe, 24th May 2001 (Copenhagen and Harare: IRCT and Amani Trust, 2001). 16 See Amani Trust, Neither Free nor Fair: High Court Decisions on the Petitions on the June 2000 General Election (Harare: Amani Trust, 2002). 5