On 7 February 2018, over 36 organisations gathered in Harare for the NTJWG
Consultative Meeting which followed the promulgation of the NPRC Act. Following
intense deliberations, a number of resolutions were adopted. Among them was the
resolution that Zimbabwe needs a transitional justice policy that transcend a single
institution.
This was after the realisation that most of the issues which stakeholders seemed to
demand from the NPRC, where never going to come out of the NPRC, even if such
demands were necessary for the NPRC to achieve its constitutionally mandated
goals. There were issues that required a broader transitional justice policy. These
were issues like transformation of institutions. The question we pondered upon
was; if national peace and reconciliation is important for our people, how do we
make sure that it is government’s way of doing business. Becoming conscious all
the time to our woundedness? Being ready to raise the fallen? Never leaving
anyone behind? Being alert to the language that fuels hate. Pushing for people –
centred economic policies that heal and not destroy.
How do we make sure that government programmes itself in a manner that is
compliant to the wounds of each people and that its apparatus are not found to kill
the wounded but rather restore those who have been shredded by past conflicts. I
personally pondered on the number of years that I have had to visit innocent people
detained in the our terrible detention centres.
Many stakeholders wondered if it is possible to influence our government, that has
since been implicated in human rights violations, into a healing government that
goes out of its way to seek its wounded. We thought of the 3 million Zimbabweans
in the diaspora, who yearn to return home and build their country. And wondered if
it is possible to build a government for reconciliation?
We thought, deeply of the 700 000 people displaced by operation Murambatsvina
and asked ourselves: where are they today? Would it be possible to build a
government that truly leave no victim behind?
We thought the generational lies told about Gukurahundi and wondered; what if we
could influence our government to be a government that truly believes in truth? And
goes out of its way to seek it?
We thought of many things going wrong in our generation – and wondered if it was
possible to stop this collapse of values?
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