HEAL ZIMBABWE - BASELINE STUDY REPORT
To further understand the past experiences
informing the national peace and
reconciliation framework, we also asked
respondents within our questionnaire
to state at most three major events in
Zimbabwe’s history that warrant national
peace and reconciliation interventions.
a le
a or e ent
Table 4 below indicates the percentage
frequencies of major events experienced
in Zimbabwe in response to the question:
List three major events in Zimbabwe’s
history that warrant the national peace and
reconciliation interventions.
arrantin national pea e an re on iliation inter ention
Major events
Percentages
2008 political violence
29.3%
Gukurahundi
24.9%
Murambatsvina
24.4%
Liberation struggle
6.8%
2000 Land reform
4.2%
Dollarization
3.1%
1992 Drought
2.3%
2015 retrenchments
1.8%
2002 political violence
1.0%
Chiadzwa atrocities
0.9%
GNU
0.8%
2016 mass demonstrations e.g. Tajamuka and #This Flag
protests/stay away
0.3%
Katiyo massacres
0.2%
Total
100.0%
The 2008 political violence was most
frequently mentioned by 29.3% of
respondents as the most prominent
event warranting the NPRC followed by
Gukurahundi with 24.9% and Operation
Murambatsvina at 24.4%. The 2008 political
violence is the most recent episode of
violence that rocked Zimbabwe during
elections. Over 200 people were killed
while thousands were internally displaced.53
Gukurahundi is the early independence
political conflict that left over 20 000 people
dead in the Matabeleland and Midlands
provinces. The least frequently mentioned
event was the Katiyo massacres with 0.2%
and the 2016 mass demonstrations with
0.3%. Katiyo massacres are killings that
took place during the liberation struggle in
the eastern border with Mozambique while
the 2016 mass demonstrations involves
violence that spread across the country
as people protested against declining
economy and bad governance.
Heal Zimbabwe Trust notes that the
views were mostly expressed by victims
of violence and those who feel aggrieved
by specific historical issues. Geographical
differences and political orientation also
influenced participants’ views as shown
below in table 5.
Human Rights Watch. (2011). Zimbabwe: No Justice for Rampant Killings, Torture Impunity Fuels New Abuses, Imperils
Future Elections. Retrieved from: https://www.hrw.org/news/2011/03/08/zimbabwe-no-justice-rampant-killings-torture.
53
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