5.1 Operational Definitions Of Peace And Reconciliation In order for the NPRC and other supporting institutions to collectively facilitate peace and reconciliation processes it is necessary to have a commonly understood definition of these concepts from all stakeholders and the NPRC. Therefore, research participants were asked to express what ‘peace and reconciliation’ meant to them and what their ‘main reconciliation’ issues were. As will be discussed in the subsequent paragraphs, Heal Zimbabwe deduces that more respondents defined ‘peace and reconciliation as a dialogue and mediation platform for victims and perpetrators overseen by the government and other stakeholders such as churches, traditional leaders, formal courts, political parties (and their leaders) to address their past. The respondents expected peace and reconciliation to address past human rights violations through open dialogue, truth-telling, compensation and peaceful co-existence. Peace and Reconciliation involve making amends to historical events or episodes that caused injury, pain and trauma among the affected communities and people. This means the foundation of any peace and reconciliation process is the acknowledgement of past wrongs. The National Vendors Union of Zimbabwe Chairperson, for example, defined peace and reconciliation as “a platform for dialogue, acceptance of responsibility for the past (torture and massacres, people to be answerable e.g. for Gukurahundi,) admission of responsibility by duty bearers.” 25Similar thoughts were also echoed by a church leader who said peace and reconciliation involves “dealing with our past and related reparations, truth-telling and reinstalling justice.”26 The study reveals that peace and reconciliation should be anchored on the principles of fairness, inclusivity and accountability at family and community level. One opposition party leader interviewed highlighted that peace and reconciliation is beyond what has been defined as negative or the absence of direct violence by prominent peace researcher Johan Galtung.27 The interviewee (political leader) said peace and reconciliation implies “the elimination of structural violence and the availability of formal structures that deals with conflict preventation at various societal levels (family, social and national) while reconciliation involves mechanisms of accounting, forgiveness for past wrongs and recompense for wrongs including criminal prosecutions.” 28 Therefore, peace and reconciliation should be a genuine process of undergoing dialogue about the past human rights violations with a view to heal the wounds of affected individual communities while facilitating accountability of such wrongs formally or informally. “The process becomes nationally meaningful when there is acknowledgement by the authorities, inclusive participation, fair treatment of all and free expression,” the political leader added. War Veterans interviewed generally viewed peace and reconciliation as the rectification of national grievances that led to the liberation war. They also argued that Zimbabwe’s peace and reconciliation should be evaluated using the benchmarks such as “one man one vote, freedom of expression, economic emancipation and access to land” which were key reasons for fighting the country’s liberation struggle. Zimbabwe’s peace and reconciliation should be evaluated using the benchmarks such as “one man one vote, freedom of expression, economic emancipation and access to land” Personal interview with, the National Vendors Union of Zimbabwe Chairperson on the 24th of April 2017 Personal interview with a Church leader in Harare on 11th of April 2017 27 Galtung, J., & Höivik, T. (1971). Structural and direct violence: A note on operationalization. Journal of Peace Research, 8(1), 73-76. 28 Personal interview with an Opposition Political Leader in Harare on the 11th of April 2017 25 26 19