Such endeavours are not without their weaknesses. Truth Commissions, for example, have struggled
to ensure the widespread inclusion of women’s experiences of violations, often because the data
collection tools and instruments employed are insensitive to their specific needs. Employment
quotas do not guarantee institutional shifts in attitude and behaviour and in many situations specific
proactive efforts are required to orientate both men and women.
Social and economic violations
Another critical area requiring more attention relates to issues of social and economic violations,
including issues of corruption. Typically, transitional justice approaches have given primary
attention to violations of first generation rights, with only a limited focus on specific or structural
socio-economic considerations. The interface between political, economic and social factors is often
reflected in manifestations of abuse.
In Zimbabwe, this interrelationship has been borne out in a number of ways, especially in relation
to the implementation of the post-2000 land reform programme, which not only resulted in a range
of specific civil and political violations (physical and property-related), but also resulted in massive
displacement and consequent loss of employment and earnings. Hundreds of thousands of people
(in particular, commercial farm workers) have been discriminated against, and in the process
impoverished, as part of a political strategy that has favoured a select few.
The land reform programme has also contributed to a massive drop in food production, and access
to food has also become increasingly politicised, with food distribution subject to partisan interests.
There have been acute increases in levels of hunger, Zimbabweans are now dying of malnutrition,
and many millions remain vulnerable to starvation. The extent to which this is a ‘man-made’ crisis,
and is being manipulated for party political interests requires further empirical study. Conditions
in Zimbabwe, especially with regards to community access, however, continue to obscure the true
picture in this regard.34
State employees, such as nurses and teachers that have opposed government policies, and/or have
been associated with the opposition MDC have been victimised and harassed, arrested and even
tortured. Likewise, many members of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions have also been
maltreated, and the union’s activities consistently subverted.
Corruption has become endemic in Zimbabwe, and although the government introduced a highprofile anti-corruption campaign, even arresting senior government officials and ZANU(PF)
members, it is evident that the measures taken were limited and highly selective, and they appear
to have petered out.35 The interface between corruption, fraud and socio-economic violations
remains largely unexamined. The Johannesburg Symposium recommended the establishment of a
Corruption Commission that would be empowered to conduct a forensic investigation that would
examine different levels of fraudulent and corrupt practice by the State and its proxies in the private
sector.
Reconciliation
Another vexed issue in the Zimbabwean context relates to experiences of ‘reconciliation’. As
in many other jurisdictions, the concept has been largely manipulated and distorted for specific
political purposes, often presented as an intangible objective that will somehow be facilitated by
the introduction of amnesty and indemnity provisions. Little attention, if any, is given to process
34
Zimbabwe: Power and Hunger: Violations of the Rights to Food, Amnesty International, 15 October 2004.
See, for example, Zimbabwe Integrity Assessment, Centre for Public Integrity, <http://www.publicintegrity.org/ga/
country.aspx?cc=zw&act=ia>.
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