Human Rights Archive Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe’s acute need for justice and reconciliation highlights a longstanding tension in transitional justice practice. The need for transitional justice processes in Zimbabwe has been clear since at least 2003, when Zimbabwean civil society articulated an ambitious set of transitional justice objectives in the Johannesburg Symposium.

This newsletter details the developments in our country around transitional justice issues to give you a better view of the transitional justice landscape in Zimbabwe today. It covers the activities of the NPRC, our activities, and publications, the activities of our stakeholders and other global developments.

The reporting year 2017-2018 was characterised by groundbreaking activities for the NTJWG.The social,political and economic environment in Zimbabwe during the reporting period was also laden with a lot of developments.

This newsletter serves to keep you up to speed with transitional justice processes in the country.

This briefing seeks to draw the Executive’s attention to the important developments in our country as they relate to transitional justice, healing and reconciliation.

This report carries a summary of the issued presented to the NPRC. In the briefing, the NTJWG raised several issues of concern to Zimbabwe’s transitional justice journey.

This newsletter highlights activities carried out between February and March 2019

In this Code of Inclusion, NTJWG advances the mandate given by stakeholders to ensure that the processes of transitional justice in Zimbabwe are aligned to the expectations of the people of Zimbabwe and meet the best international standards.

This study is based on the major premise that Zimbabwe has had only one major transition that is from colonial settler rule in 1980, although there have been some political accommodations such as the 1997 Unity Accord and the 2008 Global Political Agreement.

This report is the product of research that was undertaken in Zimbabwe during 2004 in the wake of the August 2003 symposium. In 2003, there was considerable speculation about the prospects of political talks, and even some sort of ‘negotiated settlement’ between the ruling ZANU(PF) and the opposition MDC.

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.

Transitional justice is crucial in dealing with the past and in achieving reconciliation. The United Nations Secretary General’s report on the rule of law and transitional justice in conflict and post-conflict societies describes transitional justice as ‘the full range of processes and mechanisms associated with a society’s attempt to come to terms with the legacy of large-scale past abuses, in order to ensure accountability, serve justice and achieve reconciliation’.

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.

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.

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 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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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 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.

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 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.

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