Reconciliation commission not deterred

By Daniel Kachere

The National Peace and Reconciliation Commission (NPRC) on Friday told reporters that it will not be dissuaded from doing its work by people with a nefarious agenda.
Commissioner Lilian Chigwedere, NPRC deputy chairperson, who is also the chairperson for the Harare Peace Committee, said this during a preparatory workshop for the upcoming national public and private hearings.
Chigwedere was responding to questions relating to the involvement of chiefs in the exhumation and reburial of Gukurahundi victims in Matabeleland and Midlands.
She said the NPRC worked with all stakeholders in every community to bring the necessary peace and healing in the country, thus even chiefs are equally important while their involvement in the exercise was no conflict of interest.
“We do not see NPRC in isolation. In peace building we are working with everyone and in any community the NPRC is not just going there without the community’s consent,” Chigwedere said.
“So chiefs are a big part of the programme because obviously when you go into a community, the entry point will be the chiefs that know their people.
“It is the chiefs that will collaborate with the NPRC in order to understand what needs to be done in the community. So I do not think there is a conflict of interest.”
Chiefs got that mandate after a consultative meeting between President Mnangagwa and traditional leaders from the Matabeleland provinces at State House in Bulawayo in October this year.
At the meeting, it was agreed that Government would only fund the process as a measure to show its commitment in achieving national healing.
Chigwedere said her Commission was aware of people with various agenda, but that would not deter the NPRC’s efforts to restore peace and reconciliation as people suffered a lot in conflicts they encountered.
“You must also remember that in terms of peace building, the genuine peace builders will come but there are also other people that may have other agendas. Journalists you have your agendas, all other people have their own agendas but we are saying as NPRC, lets rally together and heal the nation, unite the nation and bring peace.
“We should reach a stage which we call a never again stage where we do not keep repeating.”
The Gukurahundi era was a series of massacres of civilians carried out by the Zimbabwe National Army from early 1983 to late 1987 in the Midlands and Matabeleland provinces.
It derives from a Shona language term which loosely translates to “the early rain which washes away the chaff before the spring rains”. Nhau/Indaba