Additionally, medical reports were obtained from medical practitioners and physiotherapists where the clients had seen these personnel. Where possible, witnesses were interviewed and affidavits obtained from them. All this data was compiled on to a database, and the following results are derived from the database.

All the cases described above were comprehensively assessed as part of their claims for damages. As indicated in the previous section, comprehensive assessments were completed on all the persons seen. The results can thus be compared with other research carried out on survivors of organised violence and torture (OVT), but it should be pointed out that most previous research has dealt with a chronic rather than acute cases.

Detailing the psychosocial consequences is important when it is considered that the only other official report on the Food Riots, that issued by the ZRP General Headquarters, makes no mention of human rights abuses or even the scale of injuries suffered. It is also important to stress that the cases reported below are only indicative of the kinds of injuries and disorders suffered by survivors, and there is no data to indicate the scale. It would be necessary to carry out a study of clinic records and hospital outpatient records to get a clearer picture of the suffering experienced by ordinary citizens on Zimbabwe. Such a study would be able to test the assertion made by the ZRP that the principle of "minimum force" was observed. The victims assisted by the Human Rights Forum are drawn from a wide number of the areas affected during the Food Riots, but, as can be seen from Table 6 below, the breakdown is reflective of the areas in which human rights violations were reported or the violence was reportedly high. The largest number came from Mabvuku and Tafara.

The press reports indicated that men, women and children were all affected by the violence, and this is again corroborated by the results of the Mabvuku case studies. As can be seen from Table 7 below, more men than women were affected, and most were young persons (mean age 26.9) as opposed to other groups of survivors. This is not a comment of any consequence however, and it would be expected that current victims would be young. As also might be expected of a young group, there were a large number of single persons and relatively few widowed or divorced persons.

A high number were unemployed, and this may be important in making this group more vulnerable to civil disturbance since they were more likely to be at home and possibly more vulnerable to arrest for this reason. Additionally, there were students and pupils affected.

Of those who were employed, most had formal employment. It is also worth commenting that several members of this group became unemployed as a consequence of either the injury or the period spent away from work as a result of the injury. This is reflected in the claims for damages.

One complaint was brought on behalf of a deceased person, whilst 13 were complaints about injuries due to bullet wounds (see Table 9 below). The majority brought complaints about assaults, some of whom experienced these assaults during detention.

It is significant that the report issued by ZRP General Headquarters makes no mention of deaths or injuries due to gunshot wounds, and the ZNA, according to press reports, claims that no shots were fired by members of the ZNA. Furthermore, there is no mention in the ZRP report of complaints of assaults nor that any investigations are pending charges of assaults.

As can be seen from Table 10, the majority of the human rights violations took place in people’s homes, and only 6 persons reported being involved in incidents near the shopping centres where the looting was taking place. This gives strength to the assertions that human rights violations took place during the dragnet operations that ensued. From the testimony given by the victims, most were injured by the ZRP or the ZNA during these operations.

As can be seen from Table 11, most person were injured by members of the Zimbabwe Republic Police, but a large number were also injured by members of the Zimbabwe National Army. Some were injured by more than one branch — uniform branch and support unit of the ZRP — or more than one agency — ZRP and ZNA.

The medical complaints of these survivors were split between those who had been shot — death, bullet wound and amputation — and those who had been assaulted — fracture, pain. Two person complained that they had lost employment as a result of the injuries sustained. One man, for example, sustained permanent disability — loss of function in his arm — as a result of a bullet wound, and was unable to continue his employment as a driver due to the disability.

As regards the deaths, the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum has only been able to obtain information on the follow-up to one death, that of Kudzai Ndlovu who was shot and killed in Gweru. The public inquest, which was concluded in March 1999, revealed a wholly unsatisfactory situation. The presiding magistrate noted that no satisfactory investigations were conducted in order to reveal the identity of the perpetrator, and went so far as to state that the ZRP in Gweru were actually stifling investigations. He then recommended that the investigations should be taken over by an independent team of investigators from a different town. This is clearly at variance with the assertions of Superintendant Bvudzijena and the ZRP’s own report.

Torture
Torture can be defined according to various different definitions, the most common of which are the definitions contained in the UN Convention Against Torture and Other Forms of Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment and Punishment (UN.1984) and the Declaration of Tokyo (WMA.1975). The latter has remained the most complete statement about torture yet produced by the medical profession.

As the WMA definition states:

For the purpose of this Declaration, torture is defined as the deliberate, systematic or wanton infliction of physical or mental suffering by one or more persons acting alone or on the orders of any authority, to force another person to yield information, to make a confession, or for any other reason. (World Medical Association,1975)

According to this definition, a very large number of persons experienced torture during the Food Riots. This can be seen from the interviews in Mabvuku and in the cases currently being assisted by the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum.

In addition, disappearances should be mentioned, for this is a method of traumatising political opponents and communities which is being used more frequently. However, we do not deal with disappearances here because this was not mentioned by any informants or in the press.

The group did not report frequencies of torture as high as previous groups (AMANI.1998), which again is unsurprising since most had only one encounter with the Police or the Army. Impact Torture was reported much more frequently than other forms, and, of the forms of Impact Torture, beatings were the most frequently reported.

Psychological abuse was reported with the greatest frequency. One important factor in the pattern of abuse is that most of this group were tortured outside of detention.

A very high proportion (24%) of the group reported unconsciousness, but most of these reported unconsciousness of less than 30 minutes. For the majority of those reporting unconsciousness, this was associated with gunshot wounds, but two members reported unconsciousness following assaults. Unconsciousness is important to identify, both because of its association with long-term disability and its status as an indicator of the severity of the assault.

The scores obtained from the Self-Reporting Questionnaire (SRQ-8) and the Harvard Trauma Scale (HTS) additionally show that this group has experienced psychological problems as a consequence of their alleged torture. The SRQ-8 is a psychiatric screening instrument, and all scores in excess of 4/8 are strongly indicative of clinically significant psychological disorder. Fifteen (36%) members of the sample reported scores in excess of 4/8, which is lower than other Zimbabwean samples, but is undoubtedly due to the fact that most people experienced only a single experience.

The sample reported more experiences of trauma than witnessing or hearing stories on the Harvard Trauma Scale. Only 7 (47%) persons of the clinically disordered group showed signs of PTSD, but this was a much higher percentage than other Zimbabwean studies, and undoubtedly reflects the acute nature of the psychological distress. PTSD would be more strongly expected as an immediate consequence of OVT than other forms of disorder.

We have not reported details of the personal experience of any of these cases, since all these cases are sub judice, but the general data corroborates the reports from the Mabvuku interviews. The sample reports overwhelmingly experiences of gross human rights violations, and, distressingly, most have physical, psychological and social difficulties as a consequence of their experience.

All these cases are currently awaiting the outcome of their civil suits, and the Civil Division of the Attorney-General’s Office has indicated that it will contest all the cases. Here we would comment this is unsatisfactory in the light of the UN Human Rights Committee’s recommendations that all cases of gross human rights violations should be paid compensation, and that it is legalistic of the Government to insist upon court proceedings before any award of compensation. We are certain that this was not the intention of the UN committee.

Furthermore, we would point out that the cases reported upon here represent a small proportion of the persons who likely experienced gross human rights violations. If, as noted above, more than 70% of the persons seen in the Harare Magistrate’s Court were unconditionally discharged, and the evidence of the conditions in detention (see above in Section 5) was that gross human rights violations were perpetrated on a massive scale, then the numbers will be clearly much higher. Even more important, when the evidence suggests that gross human rights violations were perpetrated on a massive scale within the communities without arrests taking place, then the numbers affected will be in the region of many thousands. Of course this is assertion based upon extrapolation and no substitute for detailed analysis, but this is of course what the Human Rights NGO Forum has continually requested from the President and the Government: an independent commission of inquiry. Importantly, this has also been requested by the UN Human Rights Committee.