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Thoughts on national healing
Research and Advocacy Unit
March 16, 2009

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Background

Civil society has long anticipated the current dynamics and questions facing those concerned with transitional justice in Zimbabwe. In 2003, against the background of inter-party talks about possible transition, a Symposium was held in Johannesburg, which made comprehensive recommendations on the ways to manage the consequences of organized violence and torture, including ways in which truth, accountability and healing should take place. Here see Appendix 1 on Mechanisms for Addressing the Needs of Victims.

However, it is apparent that the national situation has changed (and deteriorated) considerably since 2003. A strong argument can be made that Zimbabwe now conforms to the kind of situation currently termed a "complex emergency". In the context of economic collapse, the collapse of all supportive services [health and social welfare], severe food shortages, and mass violence, Zimbabwe resembles a country at war, but without the obvious features of war. The types of trauma reported, especially in the past fiver years, conform in most respects to those seen in obvious times of war - the profiles for the pre-Independence period and Matabeleland in the period 1980 to 1987 are markedly similar to that seen nationally since 2000. Certainly, the mental health consequences seem wholly similar to what would be seen in other complex emergencies where there has been obvious war.

The most manifest effects are physical, seen in illnesses and injuries, which may be short-lived, but also may lead to long-term disability. However, the most persistent consequences will be psychological, and especially if the trauma was deliberately inflicted. Here four points should be emphasized:

• Firstly, the most probable long-term consequence of experiencing organized violence and torture is the development of a psychological disorder.
• Secondly, the probability of psychological disorder following organized violence and torture increases with the frequency of experiencing physical harm, such as torture.
• Thirdly, the probability of psychological disorder increases with the number of exposures to trauma such as organized violence and torture.
• Fourthly, whilst men are probably the most common primary victims of OVT, women and children are disproportionately the most common secondary victims, and certainly secondary victims are much more common than primary victims.

An additional concern in the aftermath of mass violence is the possibility of continued violence and serious retributive violence in which the previous victims begin to take revenge for their abuses. Whilst no intervention can claim that this can be wholly avoided, active intervention may well mitigate the scale, especially if the mental health interventions are allied to peace building, and blanket amnesty is not applied. The current trends towards retribution will not be curtailed by impunity or amnesty, rather these juridical actions are likely to inflame the situation. As was pointed out in the 2003 recommendations, there is need for comprehensive consultation with the victims and the communities - which should be allied to healing and peace-building - prior to any decision being made about the nature of any accountability process. As was stated in the Recommendations:

Prior to the establishment of these mechanisms there must be an extensive process of consultation with the victims and the broader community about the mechanisms and the sort of persons who should be made responsible for operating them. Civic organizations and the churches should assist in this process.

Such a comprehensive consultation process will clearly take time, probably no less than 18 months (and ideally open-ended), and the involvement of the communities in determining the future response to the past may have a salutary effect on minimising retributive violence.

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