MAKONI CENTRAL 1. CONSTITUENCY: MAKONI CENTRAL 2. PROVINCE: MANICALAND 3. VENUE: SALVATION ARMY CHURCH 4. DATE: 25 AUGUST 2009 5. PARTICIPANTS: No.: 41 Sex: 48% female Age: 21–81, average 29 years From: church representatives, youths, women, political activists, traditional leaders and government employees 6. RECOMMENDATIONS i. Truth recovery • There is need to recover all truth. “Tinoda kuti paitwe inonzi ‘Operation Wakatumwa Nani?’ Munhu wese akapara mhosva anofanira kuti adure munhu akamutuma kuti anopara mhosva iyoyo.” [“We desire that there be what is called ‘Operation Who Sent You?’ Everyone who committed an offence must reveal the person who sent him to commit such an offence.”] [male participant]. • The normal course of justice must bring out all truths necessary. While people may have been sent, it was wrong to follow orders to kill. Hence those who followed such orders must stand before justice and reveal everything [male participant]. • Recovering the truth will not be easy because the chief instigators are the ones in power pretending to “preach healing, and yet, if the truth be told, while these people are in charge, there will a backlash on the victims. People would rather be silent until there is a change of administration. This can only come if we change the rules of the game, the constitution, then remove the perpetrators from positions of power” [male participant]. • There can be no healing if the politicians are going to lead the process because they are the perpetrators. If there is going to be any Truth Commission, “the politicians must not be part of it, because the truth is not in them” [male participant]. • There is something “fundamentally wrong with the President appointing anybody charged with healing because he and his party participated in killing people” [male participant]. ii. Reparations and accountability Note: The issues raised touched both reparations and accountability. • “Personally, I believe we should just forgive each other in a genuine way without necessarily asking those who wronged us to pay us anything in any form” [male participant]. The above point drew opposition in the meeting. Another believed that “those who committed acts of violence and stole property should pay restitution to those that they wronged. I can not just forgive a neighbour who caused my home to be burned down or who stole my livestock” [male participant]. • It is the duty of government to compensate all those who lost their properties. Most perpetrators are either poor or unknown [male participant]. 36 Taking Transitional Justice to the People – Outreach Report