4 INTRODUCTION The Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) have recently2 issued two reports, entitled “Opposition Forces in Zimbabwe: A Trail of Violence” (the first report) and “Opposition Forces in Zimbabwe: The Naked Truth, Volume 2”. (the second report). The reports seek to portray opposition parties and civic organisations as grouped together (with the aid and assistance of foreign governments – their “neo-colonial masters3”) for the purpose of violently overthrowing the government of President Robert Mugabe4. The reports appear to be part of a new public relations offensive by the Zimbabwean government, which has also recently paid for extensive advertising to improve its image in publications elsewhere5. The offensive may well be partly motivated by a perceived need to counter the massive and negative publicity generated by the arrest of Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and civic leaders following their attempt to hold a meeting on March 11th 2007. Pictures of the severe injuries these leaders sustained following brutal and sustained torture while in police custody were broadcast around the world6. While the fact that the reports were issued is itself interesting, being a departure from the ZRP’s usual practice of simply ignoring allegations of torture by its officers, or issuing a bare denial, the content of the reports is also interesting and informative, though not because of the factual claims made. Those claims are not only internally contradictory, inherently implausible and manifestly false in many instances, but they are easily overwhelmed by evidence to the contrary contained in numerous press statements, photographs, newspaper reports and other reports that followed the events of March 11 th. The factual claims will be addressed below, for the record. However, the reason why the reports are interesting and informative is on account of what they naively reveal about the politicisation of the police, the use of state resources for party political purposes and the psychology and occasionally astounding jurisprudential ignorance of members of the ZRP. The ZRP documents might be more aptly entitled “Confessions of a Zimbabwe Republic Police Officer.”7 A confession is often tainted and questionable on account of the ulterior motivations of the confessor. Where, however, the confession is made obliquely and inadvertently and in pursuit of a known but different objective by the confessor, the confession becomes that much more 2 In April and May 2007 See the second report p22 4 An edited version of the first report was submitted on request by the Zimbabwe Embassy to the State Department of the US government. Significantly no mention was made in this edited version of the accusations that the US and other Western governments were seeking regime change in Zimbabwe through support to the MDC and other organizations. 5 See New African, May 2007 6 The camera operator, formerly an employee of the state-run ZTV, and rumoured to have leaked the television footage to the international media, was found murdered shortly after the footage was broadcast: see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/6529887.stm 7 If there be such a thing as slapstick gallows humour, given the numerous malapropisms and solecisms in the documents and clumsy arguments advanced, the comedic redolence of the title would not be inappropriate. 3