Zimbabwe’s troubled history of organised violence and torture

Few countries suffering from severe human rights abuses, prior to a major political transition, have managed to provide both extensive documentation and corrective actions in the way Zimbabwean human rights and civil society groups have done.

However, it seems that this history is too frequently forgotten, both by Zimbabweans themselves as well as the regional and international community.

Studies of Zimbabwean citizens’ view on transitional justice show great differences in citizens in which period of history has any relevance for them when it comes to thinking about transitional justice.

The young seem to have no interest in the violations that took place in the Liberation War that led to Zimbabwe’s independence, 41% of those interviewed felt that a transitional justice should confine itself to the period since 2000, and only 14% felt it should cover the period before independence.

However, organised violence and torture (OVT) has afflicted every decade since 1965, and the victims remain from every one of those decades.

Unless OVT (and impunity) is removed as a persistent feature of political problem-solving in Zimbabwe, it seems unlikely that the country can fully achieve the kind of democracy envisaged under the constitution.

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One step towards achieving full democracy is for citizens to have the clearest possible understanding of the history of OVT, both before and after independence in 1980.

An understanding of this sad history may alert citizens to the necessity of full implementation of the constitution and the importance of proactive protection of human rights under the law.

This short report provides an overview of the basis for a proper historical understanding, the documentation of OVT over the past 44 years.

 It follows the release of a brief report released last year on the content of the violations, but this report does not deal with these details.

The recently completed Sadc summit in Harare provided the watching world with a paradox.

On one hand, the government was trumpeting all the gains under the “new dispensation” and the “Third Republic”, and with all the expenditure behind the new parliament, refurbished roads, and guest villas, the intimation was that Zimbabwe was happy and prosperous.

Onthe other hand, the government was closing civic space, arresting opposition political leaders and civil society leaders as it claimed that citizens were likely to protest at the summit.

This is no new paradox.

The Zimbabwe government, and not merely during elections when there is threat of Zanu PF losing political power, has continuously responded to protests and demonstrations by repression and all too often violence.

 There is an unbroken line from the violent disruption by Zanu PF supporters of the “Peace March” 1 April 2000 to the events surrounding the Sadc summit.

OVT has been documented assiduously by Zimbabwe human rights organisations over the past 24 years, and the only conclusion that can be drawn is that, while OVT may fluctuate in frequency and intensity, it never disappears from the political and civic space.

As a consequence, Zimbabwean civil society, currently under serious threat from the proposed Private Voluntary Organisations (PVO) Act, has received plaudits from all concerned with human rights, and should deserve the respect and assistance of the government - not its hostility - in its attempt to ensure that the constitution (and all the rights enshrined) are defended.

 The documenting of human rights violations, and what became subsequently known as OVT began prior to independence with the important reports of the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace (CCJP) in Rhodesia.

 Although this important work was blocked by the illegal Rhodesian government through the notorious Indemnity and Compensation Act, the notion that civil society could hold a government to account for its wrongdoings, or at least the wrongdoings that it should be preventing, became the model for subsequent documentation by human rights groups.

Beginning with the work done in exposing the gross human rights violations in the 1980s, the impetus for documenting human rights abuses and OVT continued to grow over subsequent decades.

The information derived from all this documentation is remarkable, not merely for the quantity, but also its quality. An overview several years ago pointed out that Zimbabwean reports on human rights (and OVT) were unique in the SADC region, coming from direct engagement with victims and survivors rather than derived from press reports or reports from international human rights groups as is the case in most other Sadc countries. The importance of this huge collect

The importance of this huge collection of reports for the future cannot be understated.

One of the crucial issues in the future will be the very thorny question about transitional justice, a question that was supposed to have been the purview of the National Peace and Reconciliation Commission (NPRC), established by the (amended) 2013 Constitution.

The Commission was set to run (unusually) for 10 years but has concluded its life span with very little to show, unfortunately even the highly important matter of dealing with the Gukurahundi is now supplanted by the president’s initiative with the traditional leaders.

Important as dealing with the Gukurahundi is, it is not the only period that requires the attention of the nation going forward, as has been stated on many occasions.5

Transitional justice apart, and this will not be trivial dealing with five decades, the history itself will be a mammoth exercise, undoubtedly requiring multiple volumes.

 This history is important and an accurate record necessary for future generations to understand how their country has developed.

The historical record minimises, as Michael Ignatieff has pointed out, the range of possible lies, but his pessimistic view that the historical record, truth commissions, or human rights tribunals are unlikely to change a nation’s behaviour are not accepted by many.

Certainly, as will be seen in what follows, there has been as determined an effort to heal the wounds of the tens of thousands of victims of the past five decades as there has been to seek truth and justice.

 In fact, there is scarcely any attempt by Zimbabwean human rights organisations to deal with the gross human rights violations that has not been tried in Zimbabwe, despite the failures of the NPRC.

 Five decades of OVT are not only a large human problem, but also a considerable problem to describe in any detail, and the existing information can only be described as incomplete.

The public record available in these many reports is largely quantitative, and the numbers are a very sketchy representation of the violations: numbers of victims, the kinds of violations, who were the perpetrators, and what were the events in which the violations occurred are miniscule representation of the reality.

 The reality lies in the qualitative testimonies of the victims, the kind of information needed in law to test the reality of the record, not a simple exercise when the numbers of victims over five decades is huge.

Research suggests that the prevalence of victims and survivors over the decades is likely to be in the hundreds of thousands.9

It is becoming urgent with the demise of the NPRC that this work begins on understanding the history of OVT in a more complete way than has been done previously, and not merely for a realistic history of the past five decades, nor for establishing a comprehensive basis for a transitional justice process, but for the healing of the victims and the nation.

As was commented about the legacy of OVT in South Africa, wounded countries and wounded leaders are unlikely to provide the best underpinning for a developmental democracy.

 This report provides a brief overview of the scale of the reporting over the past 24 years, which shows that, in Zimbabwe, the more things change the more they stay the same.

*This is an extract from a new report by the Research and Advocacy Unit titled: The more things change, the more they remain the same: Organised violence and torture over the years.