The National Peace and Reconciliation Commission was established under section 251 and 253 of the constitution.
The mandate of the NPRC is to ensure post-conflict justice, healing and reconciliation, to develop programmes to promote national healing, unit and peaceful conflict resolution.
Recently, President Emmerson Mnangagwa swore in Dr Donwell Dube, Tinashe Rukuni, Chiropafadzo Moyo, Josephine Shambare, Nomaqhawe Gwere, and the major highlight was Obert Gutu as commissioners.
Just like when Unity Accord was signed in 1987, conflicts cannot only be solved by signatures on a piece of paper. This is the matrix that the NPRC has failed to solve since its establishment.
The most prominent conflicts in Zimbabwe are violence related. From Gukurahundi to political violence and election based violence.
The NPRC has been on record doing consultations meant to identify and map a way forward concerning addressing rising issues. There are already existing several records that outline and laid bare conflicts in Zimbabwe.
It looks as if the commission continues to seek the well-known truths, rather than acting on those truths. The commission has failed to find a common ground where two conflicting groups of people confront the past, shake hands and forgive each other.
Forgiveness is not a sign of weakness, rather it shows how dedicated we are as a nation to build peace and heal.
However, forgiveness must not be found based on vulnerability. Thus, two conflicting groups must be willing to accept the well-known truths and admit their part in fueling the conflict regardless of who has power over another.
For instance, many black South Africans feel that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission failed because many questions were not resolved as most Apartheid leaders pleaded ignorance to what had happened and only one person served time for his Apartheid crimes.
At this point, the NPRC must be in a position to influence the current administration to come clean and admit their wrongdoings to the people. People remember the late former president Robert Mugabe referring to the 1980s conflict as a “moment of madness” but that only was not enough as an acknowledgement.
The same should also happen for political violence, mainly between MDC and ZanuPF. NPRC should be at the centre I trying to stamp out conflict and build peace within the country.
For Sisonke, “those of us who hope for a better world have an obligation to move beyond us and them, beyond dogma, and towards one another. We must do this not because we love each other, but because we need one another. When we walk towards the other we fear and the other we hate or the other we do not understand, we do so because we know that there has never been any other way to end oppression. In the word in which I want to live in, peace and justice are king and queen and forgiveness is but their humble servant.”
The coming NPRC has a huge task to break away from the processes of the old. They must find new pragmatic ways of impartial conflict resolution. These measures will be of great importance to finding peace, unity and foster development in Zimbabwe.
