Committees. The Peace Committees tend to focus on the present, to enhance levels of tolerance and provide a credible platform to counter negative actions or attempts to manipulate specific groupings. In many areas, it is still early days, but once the work and capacity at this level has been consolidated, the Peace Committees could well be an important vehicle for raising issues of retrospective justice and accountability. Zimcet has indicated a willingness to do so, and would be keen to comment and make inputs into the development of related materials. Peace Committee activities have not been curtailed as a result of POSA and it remains to be seen whether new NGO legislation will be used adversely against them. Anecdotal evidence suggests that Peace Committee members associated with the ruling party would oppose such interference. A number of other groupings, such as women, student and youth networks, the alternative excombatant/war veteran organisation, the Zimbabwe Liberators Platform, have important networks amongst grass-roots communities in both urban and rural areas and remain important ‘conveyors of information’ back to their home areas. Youth groupings in particular must be harnessed and developed as they have been largely ostracised from strategies to tackle State repression. The Association of Women Clubs, which is part of the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition’s Peacebuilding Committee, has in the past provided a powerful platform for dissemination of information. Several interviewees pointed to their involvement reaching many communities in the 2000 constitutional referendum, arguing that they provided a critical local-level platform to counter State propaganda. Zimbabwe retains a wealth of community-based organisations. Research carried out in Zimbabwe during 2004 collected detailed profiles of 5,000 social groups with more than 50,000 members in 50 districts. The research provides an unprecedented insight into the experiences, attitudes and preferences of these groups in relation to informing a new strategy of community education and communication. Taking the process forward During early November 2004 the writer presented the preliminary findings from the research to representatives of the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum and the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition. Recognising that civil society is currently under tremendous pressure and there are a host of other pressing priorities, it was encouraging that so many organisations gave up their valuable time to engage in the discussions, exploring how it might be possible to pursue these sensitive matters in the current context. The meeting reviewed what had happened since the Johannesburg Symposium, emphasising the victim constituency-building process, their endorsement of the ‘Symposium Declaration’ (with the victim/survivor group ‘Lake Chivero Declaration’), and the establishment of a steering committee that was seeking to engage the NGO community, and in particular, the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum and Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition. Recommendations were made to establish a dedicated unit/element to drive the next stages of the transitional justice work: to focus on developing targeted processes for various constituencies (i.e. labour and the churches), to engage with and develop solidarity networks in the region, to continue to target African institutions and organs in SADC and the AU, to facilitate the development of transitional resource materials, as well as to co-ordinate the initiation of the human rights data project (discussed below). 28