Table 5 Advantages of Specifying the Period of Investigations Disadvantages of Specifying the Period of Investigation The NPRC is clear on what it is to investigate. This can be deemed to be targeting certain persons hence creating potential resistance Many times the cutoff date is hardly agreed by all actors. There is a danger of some victims being left out if they fall outside the cutoff date. The NPRC will be efcient as no time is wasted looking into this issue. A cutoff date is partly an acknowledgment of human rights violations. It is easier for the NPRC to design a work plan with specic dates. The cutoff date can affect comprehensiveness of the NPRC work. The lack of a specic timeframe in the Constitution and the NPRC Bill leaves a possibility for the NPRC to use its regulations to set a cut-off date. URUGUAY'S COMMISSION FOR PEACE Uruguay's Commission for Peace was established by President Jorge Batelle in 2000 to investigate the fate of the disappeared during the military regime from 1973 to 1985. This was in accordance with the 1986 Amnesty Law, which required the government to investigate the fates of the estimated 200 disappearances. The Commission operated for only two years. The reason why the commission was able to do its work in only two years is because the Commission was a successor to previous Commissions of Inquiry. Secondly, it was tasked with investigating a specic issue - disappearances of 200 people between 1973 and 1985. Zimbabwe's NPRC has a much broader mandate and no specic focus, hence a period of 10 years is not a lot of time. Summary box l l l The NPRC has duration of ten years. There is no agreement on the date to start counting the ten-year period. The Constitution does not specify the time the NPRC should exercise its mandate. 23