Human Rights Archive Zimbabwe

This is a preliminary report on transitional justice highlighting some of the key findings of the Forum's “Taking Transitional Justice to the People” Programme.

This report, “Who Will Dare Begin the Process of Recovering the Truth” (Volume Two of the Taking Transitional Justice to the People Outreach Report) sets out the experiences of the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum, its members and associates, who conducted outreach meetings in fifty-one constituencies in its community-based programme to take the concept of transitional justice to the community. Reports of the initial fourteen meetings were included in Volume One, published in June 2009.

This report is a follow-up to the Taking Transitional Justice to the People outreach project, which commenced in 2009, during which the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum (the Forum) went to local communities across the country to introduce the discussion on transitional justice. In this survey, the Forum conducted research between February and March 2011 to capture the recommendations and perceptions of individual Zimbabweans on transitional justice.

From 21 to 23 November 2018, over 118 delegates converged in Bulawayo for the 2018 Transitional Justice Policy Symposium which was jointly convened by the National Transitional Justice Working Group (NTJWG) and the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation (CSVR). The theme of the symposium was, ‘Never Again: Setting the Transitional Justice Agenda for Zimbabwe.’

This briefing was presented to the Special Advisor to the President on National Peace and Reconciliation. The briefing draws from the monitoring work done by NTJWG and the views obtained by NTJWG from Stakeholders who are concerned with the national peace and reconciliation process in Zimbabwe.

The work of the NTJWG in the period 2016 to 2017 has seen stakeholders pushing back on the government, rejecting the initial NPRC Bill and mobilising communities to voice their concerns. In early 2017, NTJWG invited stakeholders to a planning workshop in Harare. 37 organisations responded to that call and a comprehensive strategy was produced.

This report captures the key developments in Zimbabwe's key transitional justice processes to date. It highlights those developments relevant to the mandate of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Promotion of Truth, Justice, Reparation and Guarantees of Non-recurrence.

The objective of the research is the development of a discussion paper for a transitional justice framework for Zimbabwe. This research will cover aspects regarding the understanding of key transitional justice questions in Zimbabwe.

The conference commenced with welcome remarks from Reverend Dr Ray Motsi (the NTJWG Thematic Leader on Memorialisation). There where also remarks from Paul Themba Nyathi, the NTJWG Deputy Chairperson standing in for the working group’s Chairperson, Aleck Muchadehama as well as a speech from Nomfundo Mogapi the Executice Director of CSVR and last but not least, remarks by the Chairperson of the National Peace and Reconciliation Commission, Retired Justice Selo Nare.

Day 2 of the NTJWG Conference being in Bulawayo began with participants visiting different historical sites and heritage centres which depict Zimbabwe’s conflict history and community healing practices. Visited places include; the Entumbane Reintegration Camps sites, the Queen of Peace Roman Catholic Church and Amagugu International Heritage Centre.

Reverend Useni Sibanda opened the conference’s third day by assisting participants to reflect on first two days Symposium’s outputs drawing from various presentations and evidence by victims and survivors of the Gukurahundi atrocities.

This paper seeks to examine the question of amnesty and whether it is pragmatic to effect it as a healing and reconciliation mechanism within the context of Zimbabwe.

Closing address by Alec Muchadehama a Key note Speaker. He Emphasized in the importance of Peace and Reconciliation and ways of making sure that it is the Government's way of Doing things.

This report captures the proceedings of the Second International Conference on Transitional Justice in Zimbabwe held from 9th to 11th October 2013 in Johannesburg, South Africa. The conference discussed the prospects of establishing an effective National Peace and Reconciliation Commission in Zimbabwe, which meets the expectations of the people and is also in sync with international best practices.

An outline of the five primary focuses of transitional justice processes is provided, followed by brief descriptions of some of the key terms that are used to describe aspects of the process. The purpose of providing this information is to show that transitional justice does not have to be prescriptive.

This analysis, which included Zimbabwe, showed that, on average, Zimbabweans were highly dissatisfied with the state of democracy in their country, but that the winners were more satisfied than either the losers or the non-partisan, but also that the non-partisan were slightly more dissatisfied than the losers. This analysis was based on the data from the 1999 Afrobarometer survey, but one can see from the 2004 survey that this conclusion would still hold.

This report captures all the proceedings of the symposium, speeches, expert exchanges and outcomes. With QR codes scattered across the report, the reader is invited to join the dialogue, to watch the videos of the presentations and capture the full emotion of the 2018 symposium.