This is according to Zimbabwe Exiles Forum director Gabriel Shumba who is facilitating a series of workshops in the Diaspora to discuss transitional justice in Zimbabwe. The workshops, the first of which took place in London last week, are being organised by the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum, in cooperation with the Council of Zimbabwe Christian Leaders in the UK and the Zimbabwe Association.
In 2009 the Forum conducted a number of similar programmes throughout Zimbabwe, to find the publics desired transitional justice model for the country. Shumba told SW Radio Africas Diaspora Diaries programme last week that the workshops are critical to get opinions from victims of human rights abuses at the hands of the Robert Mugabe regime, who fled to places like the UK.
Shumba said that the workshops will allow people to state how they want justice to be served on the many perpetrators who have never been punished for their abuses. He explained how key recommendations can then be passed on to the government, and specifically the Organ on National Healing and Reconciliation, set up to tackle issues of transitional justice.
The Organ has already been largely dismissed as a non-entity by human rights campaigners in Zimbabwe, with some groups even accusing it of being nothing more than a Zanu (PF) gimmick.
Restoration of Human Rights Zimbabwe (ROHR) and the Victims Action Committee (VAC) dismissed the Organ as giving false hope to victims of ZANU PFs 2008 election violence and atrocities. Giving a joint statement to the media in Harare last month, ROHR Zimbabwe Director Tichanzii Gandanga, and VACs Fortune Muchuchuti, said the Organ had not only failed but was guilty of giving false hope to the masses of Zimbabwe.
On Diaspora Diaries Shumba explained that real implementation of transitional justice and the work of the Organ was being hampered by the lack of political will in Zimbabwe. He explained that the same people responsible for scuppering the unity government are the same people resistant to seeing the nation heal. Shumba added that the same structures of abuse, such as repressive laws like the Public Order and Security Act (POSA) were still in place in Zimbabwe, despite promises of reform by the unity government. He said this lack of reform make any inroads towards transitional justice impossible. The lack of reform is making implementation difficult and the future of national healing will be wholly dependent on political will. When asked what the point was in holding workshops in the Diaspora for such an impossible task, Shumba said awareness was an achievement critical to move the nation forward. He explained that by getting people to ask questions on the future they want, was advancing their basic rights, rights that for years have been trampled on by the Mugabe regime.
This kind of process gives people a voice and it will assist the nation in moving forward, Shumba said.
Post published in: News