National Healing Organ toothless: Youth Forum

Statements — By on May 13, 2010 5:03 am

The Organ for National Healing, Reconciliation and Integration is a mere politicking tool by the parties in government and does not have the will and capacity to achieve its mandate as enunciated in Article VII of the Global Political Agreement (GPA). The Organ exists only on paper and is meant to feign a false image that government is committed to dealing with the scourge of politically-linked human rights violations committed by various persons in the past.

The recently reported outbreak of violence in parts of Bikita and Mwenezi in Masvingo province as well as Muzarabani is credible evidence to the fact that government is not serious about achieving national healing, more so points to the fact that there are those in government who are bent on protecting perpetrators of past political violence and perpetuating the culture of impunity that has for long sustained some in political office.

However the reported incidents are just a tip of the iceberg. It is true that since the formation of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in 1999, Zanu PF has used violence as a lethal weapon to sustain its continued stranglehold in power as its popularity took a dip at the turn of the millennium.

Elections since 2000 have meant bloodshed as Zanu PF has used coercion
through its functionaries who include the war veterans, youth militias (mostly from the National Youth Training Service Programme) and state
security institutions such as the police, army and the Central Intelligence Organization (CIO) to force people to vote for it. Such violence reached a crescendo in the one-man presidential election run-off of June 27 2008 when over 500 people were reportedly murdered in the run-up to the election.

It was only after the intervention of the regional and international community that talks were held which eventually led to the formation of the inclusive government. The inclusive government through Article VII of the GPA has committed itself to addressing this scourge of political violence that dates back well even to pre-independence times. This it has proposed to do
through the Organ for National Healing, Reconciliation and Integration.

However, despite rhetoric to the contrary, politically-linked violence is on the rise especially in the rural areas. In most of the cases, it is being spawned by erstwhile victims of violence who are taking the law into their own hands and punishing those who were responsible for perpetrating violence during the bloody elections of June 2008.

All this is because such victims have reported their case to the police who in turn have done nothing to bring known perpetrators of violence to book, as they continue to walk scot-free and at times are benefitting for state resources, ostensibly for ‘defending the ballot’ through the murderous campaign that retained Robert Mugabe on June 27 2008. 

It is surprising that the police are now quick to intervene in the new skirmishes despite having in their books cases that were reported as far back as 2008 when those aligned to Zanu PF went on a rampage terrorizing those that were perceived to be supporting the MDC.

The Youth Forum takes this opportunity to call on the government to take the issue of national healing, reconciliation and integration seriously as it underpins any progression towards a democratic Zimbabwe. The tokenish approach being applied by the Organ for National Healing, Reconciliation and Integration will not help heal the wounds of the many survivors of past state-sanctioned human rights violations.

We reiterate that any national healing initiative should be community-driven, holistically encompassing the views of both victims and perpetrators. Our position still remains that any national healing process should be premised on the following four basic pillars:
1.      Truth-telling and apologies.
2.      Healing the wounds of survivors.
3.      Reparations for those who lost property, sources of livelihoods and
breadwinners.
4.      Restorative justice (taking into cognizance issues of the chain of
command that masterminded and perpetrated the rights violations).

We also implore the government to learn and take a book from our African neighbours who have successfully gone through such processes as this may help to inform the process that best suits our Zimbabwean context.

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