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Zimbabwe Briefing Issue 52
Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition (SA Regional Office)
November 16, 2011

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Organ for National Healing records breakthrough

Minister of State in Prime Minister's Office, Senator Sekai Holland has told The Zimbabwe Briefing of the significant progress achieved by the Organ for National Healing, Reconciliation and Integration. The Organ has produced recommendations for a National Infrastructure for peace from which a set of principles for the drafting of the Peace and Reconciliation Bill and a Code of Conduct for political parties will be derived. More significantly, on the 11th of this month the Organ convened a high-level meeting to discuss the Code of Conduct for political parties which was attended by the principals of the inclusive government: president Robert Mugabe of ZANU-PF, prime minister Morgan Tsvangirai of MDC-T and professor Welshman Ncube of the smaller MDC formation. The three political principals renounced violence and pledged to work for peace.

The meeting came hard on the heels of widespread violence perpetrated by the ZANU-PF aligned Chipangano militia group to prevent the MDC-T from going ahead with a political rally that the police had cleared. The police did not intervene to arrest members of this Mbare-based militia group. The inaction of the police in dealing with political violence lies at the core of the continuing problem of violence in Zimbabwe. Nevertheless, the Organ, according to Senator Sekai Holland's update, has convened a series of meetings with key stakeholders including with the Joint Monitoring and Implementation Committee (JOMIC), with the three Secretary Generals of the three political parties which are signatory to the GPA, and their negotiators, and with the Traditional Chiefs' Council. to update them as well on the latest developments outlined above. The traditional chiefs meeting first received an update from the Organ Chairperson - Vice President John Landa Nkomo (ZANU-PF) before a plenary session when the chiefs gave their comments. One comment was on the need to have enforceable mechanisms and measures for the implementation of the Code of Conduct for political parties. Zimbabweans were called upon to take the work of the Organ seriously as the work is central to the development of a new culture for peace in Zimbabwe.

The Organ's plans going ahead include having the political principals sign onto to the Code of Conduct and to convene civil society all stakeholders provincial conferences across the country to discuss the peace process and the proposal from the Global Political Agreement (GPA) principals that the proposed independent Peace and Reconciliation Council, a part proposed in the Organ's infrastructure for peace (composed of nine people four of who will be women) be immediately established through the Parliamentary process.

This commendable effort by the Organ needs to be backed up by action demonstrative of political will on the part of the political leadership. But more importantly, the Organ must realize that the key to ending the culture of violence lies in the ability of the Organ to deal with key state institutions responsible for violence, and for the maintenance of law and order. State-sponsored violence must end, and the police must discharge their mandate professionally and hold accountable perpetrators of violence.

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