MatabelelandReport

REPORT ON THE 1980S DISTURBANCES IN MATABELELAND AND THE MIDLANDS
Compiled by the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace in Zimbabwe, March 1997
PART TWO: RESULTS - PRESENTATION AND
DISCUSSION OF NAMED HUMAN RIGHTS OFFENCES
1.HUMAN RIGHTS DATA BASE - NAMED VICTIMS
Methodology has already been covered in some depth in Part One, II. To summarise, named victims were extracted
from multiple sources, which included CCJP archival material, interviews conducted in the 1990s, paralegal clients, and
previously published human rights and academic documents. These named victims were entered into the "HR Data
Base". Each name was allocated a number, a set of letters indicating offence/s, and district and perpetrator were also
tabulated.(see page for more detail). The following totals were arrived at:
TOTAL VICTIMS:3 534entries in combined HR Data Bases.
OFFENCES:7 246 [most victims suffered 2 or even 3 offences: occasionally one entry clearly indicates more than 1
victim - see Part One, II for examples.
Approximately one thousand victims were validated from more than one source, and more than 300 were validated by 3
or more sources.
2. THE CHRONICLE DATA BASE
Data from The Chronicle, Bulawayo's daily newspaper, were entered into an identical, but separate data base, for
reasons discussed in Part One, II. The Chronicle listed victims in 2 ways, defined for the purposes of this report as
"General" and "Specific" Reports.
"General Reports" are the six monthly statements in Parliament, giving total numbers of dissident offences without clear
indication of where they occurred.
"Specific Reports" are the day by day reports of dissident activites, which tended to give the district where offences
took place, the number of victims or value of property lost, but not usually the exact names of victims. Only specific
reports were entered into The Chronicle Data Base.
The Chronicle data base consisted of 562 entries, and covered the months from June 1982 to March 1988.
3.ANALYSIS OF HUMAN RIGHTS AND `CHRONICLE' DATA
Victim data were computer-sorted along various parameters for assessment.
It was sorted alphabetically by:
1 District
2. Year and Month (numerical sorting)
3. Type of offence
4. Surname and then first names of victim
A process of counting rows, once this sorting was complete, made it possible for the computer to quantify offences in
required ways. Data were sorted by district and offence for Table I, and were resorted by perpetrator, offence and
year for Table II.
Total numbers of offences exceeded total number of named victims, as the majority of victims suffered multiple
injuries, such as loss of property and death, or detention and torture. If victims suffered injuries from more than one
agency (ie 5 Brigade and CIO), then only the primary agency is counted as perpetrator.
As mentioned previously, data from The Chronicle were kept separately, but were sorted and counted in the same way
as other data.
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