While the aforementioned were stateled efforts, civic society organisations also made efforts to facilitate peace and reconciliation processes. The work of the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace (CCJP) evidenced through the Breaking the Silence report (CCJP 1997), which is the first formal documentation on the Matabeleland and Midlands postindependence atrocities to be made public and the establishment of the Human Rights NGO Forum, is an early example of concerted civic society efforts to promote peace and reconciliation in Zimbabwe. The combined reconciliation efforts by both the state and civic society organisations, are however, considered to have both succeeded and failed at varying degrees. The Prime Minister’s reconciliation decree of 1980 was both a racially and politically integrative declaration of reconciliation between the white colonialists and blacks as well as among black nationalists who had differences carrying over from the liberation struggle movements. The then Prime Minister, Robert Gabriel Mugabe, declared that all peoples across the independent Zimbabwe must “forgive and forget” and beat their swords into ploughshares. At this point, Zimbabwe was grudgingly pursuing a ‘forgive and forget’ reconciliation policy, as a consequence of the Lancaster House negotiations in 1979. This reconciliation call saw white people continuing to live in Zimbabwe and many of them being offered positions in the new Africanised government. The land question, which was broadly the purpose of going to war, was promulgated through the “willing-buyer willing-seller” model as a reconciliatory measure that sought to avoid radical redistribution of land and leaving the colonial settlers at a disadvantage. The willing-buyer willingseller approach, however, resulted in unequal land distribution. A coalition government comprised of the ZANU PF and PF ZAPU and partly the Rhodesian Front cadres also showed some semblance of political reconciliation. The liberation war fighters mainly the ZIPRA, ZANLA and Rhodesian Front armies were also reconciled by establishing an integrated National Army (Zimbabwe National Army). Arguably, the acceptance of the ‘forgive and forget’ reconciliation policy made the whites believe in their indispensability, making it difficult to build a racially cohesive independent Zimbabwe. This arrogance made the land reconciliation attempt through the ‘willing buyer willing seller’ policy unproductive and wasteful.16 The ominous integration of the Rhodesian and the Zimbabwe security forces brought with it institutionalised technologies of torture from Rhodesia into Zimbabwe. It is claimed that ZANU’s dissention against ZAPU was supported by the United Kingdom. The ‘forgive and forget’ policy failed to identify perpetrators and hold them to account, and failed to identify, acknowledge and address the needs of victims. Worse still, the policy failed to facilitate necessary institutional transformation required to address historical issues and to install the necessary safeguards for the young democracy. On the other hand, another issue that required reconciliation developed in 1997 when the War Veterans demanded land and financial rewards for having Onslow S. (2011). Zimbabwe and Political Transition. London School of Economics and Political Science. Retrieved from: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/43645/1/Zimbabwe%20and%20political%20transition.pdf 16 Moyo, S. (2014). A Failed Land Reform Strategy in Zimbabwe: The Willing Buyer Willing Seller. Harare, Zimbabwe; Research Institute for Policy Development, 2(1), 67-74. 15 8 RECONCILIATION PROCESSES IN ZIMBABWE