Since 2000, deep polarization in Zimbabwe only became a catalyst for violent national elections, hate language on public platforms and media, disappearances and outright intolerance of any dissent, characterized with beatings, displacements, rape and murder of vulnerable political opponents.

Twenty-year old Kizito Zuze dismisses the Zimbabwe government’s proclamation of 24, 25 and 26 July as the only days of national healing to end decade-long trauma as a joke and public posturing by uncaring politicians. During the 2008 presidential elections, his parents were brutally murdered at their rural home for being top members of the opposition party while he and close relatives fled to the capital city to live as squatters and beggars.

Healing process

No one was charged for perpetrating an orgy of violence on defenseless citizens whose sin was choosing to dare hold a different opinion. The birth, on February 15 of the  inclusive government of the former ruling Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU PF) of  President Robert Mugabe and two Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) formations of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai,  and Arthur Mutambara did not immediately heal the gashing wounds. 

In its national campaign, the Zimbabwe Christian Alliance (ZCA), an umbrella body of different denominations is advocating for a healing process whose key elements are truth telling, acknowledgement, repentance, forgiveness, restorative justice and reconciliation.

The inclusive government acknowledges that there was widespread violence during the  ZANU(PF) rule. Starting off with the early 1980 disturbances in Matabeleland, in south western Zimbabwe, where over 20 000 people were killed by a North Korean - trained brigade,  was largely seen as indirect ethnic cleansing in provinces that did not vote for Mr. Mugabe.
 

No justice without truth

Tsvangirai wants these atrocities and prior ones during the war of liberation probed and also suggests the payment of reparations, public confessions, forgiveness and forgetting. There can be no truth without justice and no justice without truth.

What victims of genocide and political violence need urgently is a credible truth and reconciliation commission that will enable the perpetrators of such atrocities to come out in the open and confess. Part of the healing process should involve teaching children the truth about what happened during  these periods of conflict.

Institutions and structures of violence like the youth militia camps and some misguided sections of war veterans should be dismantled so that people can do their day to day business without fear. The security sector, consisting of the police, army and the intelligence organization should not be run along partisan lines.
 

Escape from denialism

A politician stated recently in a newspaper that Zimbabwe should be motivated by the desire to escape from denialism and confront head-on the problems at hand.  as the country desperately clamour to heal the nation and forge a new dispensation of peace, harmony and prosperity.

The newly created government ministry for national healing staffed by three ministers will remain an ivory tower if its purpose is to nurse a flawed process of short cuts designed to protect politicians largely responsible for violence, intimidation, arson and general traumatization of peace-loving Zimbabweans.

In the end, the orphaned and displaced like Kizito as well as the maimed and abused run the risk of never being healed.

Photo: mira66(Flickr)

Below is an interview with Fungisai Maisva of the Research and Advocacy Unit which has called for the establishment of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Zimbabwe just like what happened in South Africa after apartheid.