7. Timing of the Transitional Justice Process There were serious debates on when the process of transitional justice should begin and how far back this process would go in terms of Zimbabwe's history of organized violence and torture. The participants could not agree on a particular cut-off date or period. Some argued that the history of Zimbabwe did not begin in 1980 and therefore Rhodesian violations needed to be taken into account. Other participants argued that there was not sufficient memory left to fully account for the violations, as most of the actors were presumed dead or very old. Some participants argued that ignoring pre-1980 occurrences diminishes the role of the liberation movement survivors in the acts of violence and presumes the official pardon and reconciliation pronouncement by Mr. Mugabe in 1980 were cathartic enough to effect lasting national healing in Zimbabwe. Other dates proffered were 1983, 2000 and 2008. The choice of dates and periods for national healing seemed motivated by the individual circumstances, where violations did occur in that year or if a relative was killed or injured. Those in Matabeleland provinces favoured the timing of transitional justice around the 1980s because this is when the vicious cycle of violence landed heavily on their communities at the back of armoured carriers and tanks in the era of Gukurahundi. The participants in Masvingo, while they sympathized with victims of violence in Matabeleland, felt that the process of transitional justice should concentrate around the the year 2000 because that was when they saw the epitomy of the violence characterized by the Fast Track Land Reforms, Operation Murambatsvina and the state sponsored political violence against opposition parties up to 2008. Setting the date was not really conclusive, but the wisdom of the GPA of accounting for pre and post independence political violence was more attractive. 30