5. Prospects for Reconciliation societies (Mendez 1997, Dwyer 1999, Greenawalt 2000). In view of the foregoing debate, Zimbabwe’s experiences and the retrogressive impact of past wrongs provide enough basis for the reconciliation. In the wake of a new Constitution (2013) whose Chapter 12 (Section 251 – 253) specifically deals with the National Peace and Reconciliation Commission, there is increasing momentum for the operationalization of a feasible framework of operation. The efforts and distance covered by previous initiative such as the 1980 reconciliation call, the Unity Accord and the GPA and their related institutions should all serve as pointers for a new mechanism and institutional landscape to learn from. The country also prides with robust customary and indigenous institutions with legendary histories of dealing with communal violence at a local level. Given our functional institutions, justice with capacitation and good will, the country could be on the path for a successful reconciliation process provided the political environment is detoxified and we plan for reconciliation not for the present, but also for the future generations. Further, the citizenry itself is ready for it and the buy-in for reconciliation is guaranteed. Given the obtaining political and administrative feasibility, Zimbabwe’s reconciliation will definitely take off sooner rather than later. However, a baseline establishing specific progress markers and systems for reconciliation and integration remain important, hence the significance of Heal Zimbabwe’s Peace and Reconciliation baseline survey.   In framing the relationship between justice and reconciliation others see doing justice as contributing to reconciliation (Verdeja 2009; C. Murphy 2010). From their perspective, justice and reconciliation are not fundamentally or necessarily in conflict. Justice may even be a precondition for reconciliation in cases where allowing impunity for serious wrongdoing would fuel resentment and undermine trust in institutions. Even if individual wrongdoers are further alienated by punitive measures, holding them accountable may be productive of a broader reconciliation among victims and other members of the community, as well as among future generations. Instead of conceptualizing the relationship between justice and reconciliation through the processes that promote each value, a different set of views consider instead the core moral concerns constitutive of each value. According to some scholars, reconciliation and justice are compatible, though distinct, moral values, and a variety of processes can respond to the moral concerns each value takes up (Allen 1999, Allais 2012). That is, responses to wrongdoing can be just and conducive to reconciliation in different degrees. Responses to wrongdoing may promote some aspects of justice (such as demands for recognition of victims and accountability for perpetrators), but not others. For example, this view can accommodate the claim, made during the South African TRC, that wrongdoers are held accountable when they are required to undergo the shaming experience of testifying publically to their crimes (Final Report, 1998, vol. 1, ch. 1, para 35). Similarly they may foster some dimensions of reconciliation (such as epistemic or attitudinal changes), but not others. A final view is that reconciliation is (part or all of) justice (Llewellyn and Howse 1999, Philpott 2012). Theorists who adopt this position regard it as a mistake to equate justice with retributive justice. In the view of advocates of restorative justice, justice is fundamentally about repairing damaged relationships. Tutu famously responds to the criticism of the TRC’s decision not to pursue retributive justice by saying, “We believe, however, that there is another kind of justice – a restorative justice which is concerned not so much with punishment as with correcting imbalances, restoring broken relationships – with healing, harmony and reconciliation” (Final Report, Vol. 1, Ch. 1, para. 36). It is difficult to provide a definitive account of restorative justice. However, the emphasis is on achieving a morally appropriate state of relations, where victims’ needs for recognition, security and reparations are giving special emphasis (Kiss 2000, Walker 2006). It may now be appropriate to look into the legacy of violence in Zimbabwe before one looks at the prospects for reconciliation 11