Organised Violence and Torture
in Zimbabwe in 1999

1. Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum
The idea of an NGO Forum was initially developed in 1997 by the AMANI Trust. The organizations which today form the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum came together to deal with problems of the January 1998 Food Riots. It was agreed then that the priorities of the Forum were to provide legal assistance to those victims in detention by applying for bail pending trial, to assist victims of police/army brutality seeking damages for injuries, to compile an accurate report of human rights abuses and to provide rehabilitation to victims in need of it. A report was compiled which made several recommendations¹ and a further report was submitted to the Human Rights Committee of the United Nations². Forty-two victims were assisted to file civil suits against the state for injuries. To date some of these cases have been settled out of court, some have proceeded to trial and some are still pending.

The Human Rights Legal Unit of the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum came into full operation during 1999 mainly to continue support to the cases from the Food Riots in 1998. The Unit has taken on additional cases of gross human rights violations during 1999 because there was a clear need to do so. 

2 See Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum (1998), Comments from some Zimbabwean Non-Governmental Human Rights Organisations on the Report of Zimbabwean Government under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to be presented to the Human Right Committee in March 1999; See also UN HIGH COMMISSION FOR HUMAN RIGHTS (1998), UN Human Rights Committee: Consideration of Reports Submitted by States Parties under Article 40 of the Covenant. Concluding Observations of the Human Rights Committee: Zimbabwe.  TOP