On 7 February 2018, over 36 organisations gathered in Harare for the NTJWG Consultative Meeting which followed the promulgation of the NPRC Act. Following intense deliberations, a number of resolutions were adopted. Among them was the resolution that Zimbabwe needs a transitional justice policy that transcend a single institution. This was after the realisation that most of the issues which stakeholders seemed to demand from the NPRC, where never going to come out of the NPRC, even if such demands were necessary for the NPRC to achieve its constitutionally mandated goals. There were issues that required a broader transitional justice policy. These were issues like transformation of institutions. The question we pondered upon was; if national peace and reconciliation is important for our people, how do we make sure that it is government’s way of doing business. Becoming conscious all the time to our woundedness? Being ready to raise the fallen? Never leaving anyone behind? Being alert to the language that fuels hate. Pushing for people – centred economic policies that heal and not destroy. How do we make sure that government programmes itself in a manner that is compliant to the wounds of each people and that its apparatus are not found to kill the wounded but rather restore those who have been shredded by past conflicts. I personally pondered on the number of years that I have had to visit innocent people detained in the our terrible detention centres. Many stakeholders wondered if it is possible to influence our government, that has since been implicated in human rights violations, into a healing government that goes out of its way to seek its wounded. We thought of the 3 million Zimbabweans in the diaspora, who yearn to return home and build their country. And wondered if it is possible to build a government for reconciliation? We thought, deeply of the 700 000 people displaced by operation Murambatsvina and asked ourselves: where are they today? Would it be possible to build a government that truly leave no victim behind? We thought the generational lies told about Gukurahundi and wondered; what if we could influence our government to be a government that truly believes in truth? And goes out of its way to seek it? We thought of many things going wrong in our generation – and wondered if it was possible to stop this collapse of values? 2

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