This came out at a JOMIC Mashonaland Central special provincial liaison meeting held on Tuesday in Bindura.
JOMIC is the principal body dealing with issues of compliance and monitoring of the Global Political Agreement which gave birth to Zimbabwe’s Government of National Unity in 2009.
JOMIC co-chairpersons drawn from the MDC-T, Zanu (PF) and the MDC led by Welshman Ncube concurred that political intolerance and violence in the province had decreased as a result of outreach programmes meant to preach peace among communities.
MDC-T Co-chairperson, Godfrey Chimombe, said: “At the present moment, we cannot really say that there is political violence in Mashonaland Central. Of course there are a few isolated cases here and there but the environment is very quiet.
“We are moving around preaching peace and tolerance and we are urging village heads and chiefs to preach the same to villagers. As political leaders we should teach our supporters to desist from violence. Even Tsvangirai and Mugabe are on record denouncing violence.”
Chimombe said peace was crucial in aiding the country’s development efforts.
Zanu (PF) Co-chairperson, Everson Tauro, admitted that many cases of politically motivated violence were reported in Mashonaland Central during the 2008 elections but said the situation had changed as communities were beginning to embrace political tolerance.
“We are saying that as Zimbabwe let’s move away from 2008.We are glad that people are embracing the call and there is peace in the province.
“Even during the liberation struggle we used to clash as ZIPRA and ZANLA forces but we later realised that there is more that unites us than divides us. Even the GNU came after some fighting but the relationship between the principals now is very cordial and let us follow that example,” said Tauro.
The MDC-N Co-chairperson, Henry Chimbiri expressed concern that people were politicising social issues and the development had led to misleading reports on political violence in Mashonaland Central.
“The problem is that at times people get involved in social arguments and fight but after that, one will come to us and report that one would have been harassed by Zanu (PF) people but when we go to investigate the matter, we discover that the issue was a purely social one which had nothing to do with politics,” said Chimbiri.
Post published in: News