Kariba 1. Constituency: Kariba 2. Province: Mashonaland West 3. Venue: St. Paul’s Anglican Church 4. Date: 19 November 2009 5. Participants: No.: 29 Sex: 34% female Age: 18–71, average 31 years From: church leaders, youths, women, political activists, women, NGOs and government employees. 7. Recommendations i. Truth recovery • A truth commission is a good way to deal with the past [some participants]. • The mechanism must be localized, with elders and traditional leaders working with the affected communities to identify victims and perpetrators [male participants]. • Truth recovery mechanisms need not alienate the perpetrators [male participant]. • A truth commission needs to wait until tension in the country has subsided. He did not say when it is going to subside [male participant]. • There is no political will to end violence in the Inclusive Government [male participant]. • No effort has been made by the principals of the GPA to denounce violence or end hate speech fanning violence and intimidation. ii. Institutional reform • Reforms in the security sector are important [church leaders]. • The security sector must be non-partisan and free from manipulation by politicians [political activists]. • There is need to reform the rest of the public sector institutions so that they become professional and apolitical [political activists]. • There is need to dismantle the National Youth Service because it is serving partisan interests [political activists]. • The police must protect people. In the past they failed to perform their duties. “We were so vulnerable such that our homes were not safe anymore. We had to sleep outside with elephants so that we are not attacked.” In other words, they sought protection from wildlife, because the police failed to perform their duties [political activists]. iii. Accountability • There is no confidence in the Zimbabwe government’s ability to uphold the principle of accountability, and the idea of a truth commission would work towards establishing accountability [male participant]. • All political violence-related crimes have to be accounted for by the political parties and leaders of those parties [political activists]. Taking Transitional Justice to the People – Outreach Report 73