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Who should be sanctioned?
A P Reeler
Former Director, Amani Trust
Executive Committee Member, The International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims
January 31, 2003

How many are responsible?
The reports of the Human Rights Forum indicate that a total of 1,352 individual persons are mentioned in the statements given by victims. There are also a very large number mentioned in the same reports derived from press reports, but we have concerned ourselves only with the names that have come directly to the Human Rights Forum, since these are supported by affidavits and medical reports. This is a large number of names, but it should be stressed only represents a sample of the actual total. The names are derived from only those who reported to the Forum, and cannot be even an indicator of the actual total. The actual total can only be determined by a Commission of Inquiry or epidemiological investigation.²

The first step in the analysis was to look at differences between the Parliamentary Election in 2000 and the Presidential Election in 2002. As can be seen from Table 1 below, there are not great differences in the total numbers of perpetrators identified between the two elections. There is about a 10% increase in the number of perpetrators identified for the Presidential Election. The interesting changes are in the types of perpetrators identified between the two elections.

Table 1.

Percentages of different categories of perpetrators reported to human rights organizations in the Parliamentary and Presidential Elections

The number of reports involving the MDC is wholly insignificant³, and hence the remainder of this report will not concern itself with the MDC, but concentrate on the other categories of perpetrators.

As is seen from Table 1, ZanuPF supporters form the overwhelming majority of the perpetrators, and together with the war veterans (ZNLWVA), the second most frequent category, account for over 85% of the perpetrators in both elections. We see a small trend during the Presidential Election for more categories of perpetrators to appear: as the percentage of ZanuPF supporters falls slightly – from 67% to 64% - so is there a corresponding increase in the percentages for the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP), the Zimbabwe National Army (ZNA), and the Zimbabwe Prison Service (ZPS). There is also a relatively marked decrease in the number of Members of Parliament mentioned in the Presidential Election. Presumably MPs were more prepared to be involved in violence in their own cause than in the cause of their President.

There may also be a measure of caution being shown by these MPs, having been previously mentioned in the Human Rights Forum report – "Who is Responsible?" – as well as many of them having been subject to public scrutiny through the election petitions mounted by the MDC in the aftermath of the Parliamentary Elections. It may be that there is after all a preventive effect for publishing reports of gross human rights violations.

The reports of the Forum do not allow much analysis of the category – ZanuPF supporter – and it is therefore not possible to make any comments on the role of the youth militia, but this group has been mentioned in other reports of the Forum and in the reports of member organisations of the Forum.⁴

There are 1,352 names mentioned in these reports, but many names only appear once, either for the Parliamentary Election or the Presidential Election. It is thus of interest to examine cases of multiple involvement in gross human rights violations, both in the sense of being involved at different times and also in the sense of being involved in multiple incidents - and in different places - within the same time frame. It is also of interest to examine cases where persons having some official status – MP, policeman, member of the CIO, soldier, party official, government or local government official, etc – are named as perpetrators, as these are persons whose office should demand that they are impartial. Where officials are involved, it also raises the question about the government’s involvement in gross human rights violations: do these officials get involved in their personal capacity or as agents of the Government?

Thus, the analysis then sorted through the names mentioned in the reports, and removed all cases in which the person was only mentioned once, and did not hold any public office or political office, such as a party official. When this was done, the total number of cases was reduced considerably; from 1,352 to 608, a drop of 55%. However, it still meant that 45% of the names mentioned were either officials or multiple offenders. Table 2 below is thus an extension of Table 1 above.

Table 2.
Serious offenders in the Parliamentary and Presidential elections, and in both Elections (percentages).

	2000	2002	Serious Offenders from both elections. N=608
Member of Parliament	3.4	0.57	4.28
Central Intelligence Organisation	1.39	0	1.15
Zimbabwe Republic Police	2.01	6.68	9.21
Zimbabwe National Army	0	0.85	0.49
Zimbabwe Prison Service	0	0.28	0.16
Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association	19.8	23.6	4.11
ZanuPF supporter	67.4	63.9	76.3
ZanuPF (YOUTH)	3.7	0.14	0.99
ZanuPF OFFICIALS	0.93	0.14	1.32
Movement for Democratic Change	0.15	0.28	0
Government Official	0.46	0.14	1.97
Unknown	0.77	3.27	0

As can be seen from Table 2, the relative percentages do not change much when we consider only the serious offenders. The major perpetrators remain overwhelmingly ZanuPF supporters and war veterans (ZNLWVA), but, interestingly, the ZRP becomes a higher ranked category and MPs become the second ranked category. This clearly speaks to the suggestions made by all human rights groups that this campaign of violence was organized, the clear implication to be drawn from the involvement of state agencies.

Table 3 below shows the numbers of persons in each category, the number of times that this group was involved in alleged torture, and the percentages. Statistically, the average number of times that this group as a whole was involved in torture was 2.64 (s.dev.1.63). However, some individuals distinguished themselves and were reported on many occasions as having been involved in torture. Mr Norman Josaya was mentioned no less than 16 times, whilst Messrs Mupamombe (15), Mashonga (14), "Biggie" Chitoro (11), and Rwodzi (10) all received frequent mention.

Table 3.
Total numbers of times persons in each category identified as a perpetrator

Amongst the Members of Parliament, there were a large number who were mentioned more than once. Shadreck Chipanga (6), Saviour Kasukawere (5), Border Gezi (5), Elliot Manyika (5), J.B. Matiza (4), and Mark Madiro (4) were all multiple offenders according to the reports received by the Forum. Dr. Chenjerai Hitler Hunzvi, the deceased Member of Parliament for Chikomba and leader of the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association (ZNLWVA), of course is probably the most notorious, as is the deceased Border Gezi. In respect of the latter, there has been at least one report to the Human Rights Forum alleging that Border Gezi had set in place a "hit squad"⁵. Doctor Hunzvi made no attempt to hide his involvement in violence and was on record many times threatening violence, and clearly indicating that he was in charge of the "war veterans".

Over 13% of the total above can be considered to be "officials" of one kind or another, and this again speaks very strongly to the idea that the violence was organized and condoned by the State. The involvement of Members of Parliament in gross human rights violations is a very serious problem, and this has been recognized by the placing of most of these MPs on the personal sanctions lists of the US and the EU. We will return to this issue later, as well as the issue of the most notorious of the perpetrators, but it now worth while looking at patterns, especially as they relate to elections.

3 This is a conclusion supported throughout the many human rights reports on current Zimbabwe, and is additionally supported by the conclusions of the many reports from election observer groups. Hence, it is not a problematic or contentious assertion to exclude the MDC from analysis.

4 See here especially, Amani (2002), Beating your opposition. Torture during the 2002 Presidential campaign in Zimbabwe, HARARE: AMANI TRUST.

5 See Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum (2000), Who is responsible? A preliminary analysis of pre-election violence in Zimbabwe, HARARE: ZIMBABWE HUMAN RIGHTS NGO FORUM.

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