Who was responsible?
Alleged perpetrators and their crimes
during the 2000 Parliamentary Election period
July 2001

Statistics of violence

Political affiliation of the victims

The political affiliation of the victims supports the claim that those targeted were members of opposition parties and non-politically connected persons throughout the country. Violence, on the part of the ruling party, appears to have been carried out on an "if you are not for us, you are against us" mentality. If a person’s political affiliation was unclear, it was assumed that they supported the opposition. Office holders and supporters of parties in opposition to Zanu (PF) were the primary targets of political violence, in particular those belonging, or suspected of belonging, to the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). In comparison, very few Zanu (PF) members were victims of violence.

Table 1: Political Affiliation of Victims who reported to the Human Rights NGO Forum

Gross human rights violations
The nature of the human rights violations reported and the frequency is indicated in the table below. Whilst they represent the frequency of violations reported to the Human Rights Forum and the pattern of violations they by no means reflect the number of violations carried out on a national scale. Pre-election violence affected huge numbers of people and as such these numbers do not give a comprehensive picture of the actual scale of violations. For example, whilst only 14 murders were reported to the Forum, the number of murders on a national scale was about 40. Additionally, nearly all victims who made reports to the Forum spoke of several other persons who had suffered the same violations as they had but who were unable to report or were reluctant to do so due to fear of further victimization.

Table 2: Political Violence: Violence Sub-type for cases reported to Human Rights Forum

N.B There is some over-lap between sub-types. For example all victims of torture were also kidnapped.

Bearing in mind the point made above about re-classifying various crimes as torture, it will be seen that 75% of the cases report either physical or psychological torture, or both.

Date of Incident
Incidents of political violence began as early as February 2000 prior to the referendum when it was still unclear when the election would be. In the two months prior to the election violence rose sharply, reaching a peak in May 2000.

A note on organised violence and torture
It is very important to understand that the cases reported below are not simply examples of electoral violence, but represent gross human rights violations. They involve extra-judicial killings, torture (both physical and psychological), disappearances, and cruel and inhuman treatment. Although we report the violations as crimes in the sense of the criminal law of Zimbabwe, they are also gross human rights violations in both human rights law and humanitarian law.

Torture is the most common of the violations reported. We have separated assaults from torture, as this is the way that the victims gave their own testimony, but in virtually all cases the assaults would be classified as torture. We have also separated intimidation and property destruction as they are often reported as distinct from torture, but it must be borne in mind that these are also forms of psychological torture and conform to the general definition of torture given in the United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Forms of Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment and Punishment. Cases that are considered ‘organised violence’ meet the first three criteria below but are not committed by agents of the State.

The four elements of torture are:

When this definition is applied to the cases below, it will be easily seen that the vast majority experienced torture.

Methodology
The primary sources of this report are statements taken by the Legal Unit of the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum from victims of political violence. Information was also gathered from reliable independent reports concerning the June 2000 parliamentary election. Seventy-two percent of the detailed statements used to compile this report are first-hand reports made by the victims to the Forum. The remaining statements are mostly first-hand reports as well compiled by reliable independent institutions. The statements that appear in italics were either recorded directly from an oral interview with a victim of political violence or were taken from written statements. In some cases notes were taken from a victim instead of a verbatim account and these appear in regular font.

This report shows a large disparity between crimes committed by Zanu (PF) supporters, including war veterans and CIO members, and other opposition parties such as the MDC. Every effort has been made to document political violence as objectively as possible but the fact remains that there were very few cases in which opposition party members were responsible for violence during the pre-election period in 2000. The Forum and the Amani Trust encourage all victims of political violence to come and record their statements regardless of political affiliation. We also advertise publicly for victims to seek us out for services. However, the pattern is clear. While there are isolated incidents implicating opposition members, it appears that only agents of the government and Zanu (PF) have a systematic strategy to employ violence for their political gain, as this report will show.

It is also important to note that this process is incomplete. At the time of this report we have taken statements from, or are in the process of taking statements from, victims from 14 of the 38 election challenges currently before the High Court concerning the run-up period to the June 2000 Parliamentary Elections. The first wave of victims came forward last year but much of our information has come from victims who have chosen to testify in the High Court challenges. It is likely that the number of alleged perpetrators will increase dramatically by the time all the cases are heard. Additionally, it is reasonable to assume that our information represents well less than half of the actual number of both cases of political violence and perpetrators. A complete assessment of political violence should be the job of an independent judicial commission. It should also be noted that the provinces of Bulawayo, Matebeleland North and Matebeleland South were not included in this report. While there is documented evidence that serious cases of political violence and torture took place during the first half of 2000, there was not sufficient information available to include those areas in this report.

Key Abbreviations

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