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Rebuilding community cohesion and trust: Villagers in Buhera continue to castigate political violence and demanding peace
Heal Zimbabwe Trust
May 02, 2012

Community efforts towards rebuilding relations destroyed by political violence continue to be hailed. Villagers in Buhera West continue to meet regularly under the Heal Zimbabwe Trust's Kugara Hunzwanana peace building programme which was introduced in 2011. The programme is a response to the realization that after the 2008 political violence period people in the same community and from different political parties have not been "seeing eye to eye" due to the tension and conflict brought by politically motivated violence. The situation is made worse by the fact that the violence was between people of the same communities who continue to see each other more often. Victims and perpetrators try to avoid each other but their proximity to each other makes it difficult. Heal Zimbabwe Trust realized that there are some traditional practices that can bring people together across the political divide and reclaim community peace that existed before the unfortunate 2008 violence.

It is sad that most of the cases of political violence in rural communities are initiated by outsiders, it might be politicians or state machinery but it is the local people who are left to do the "dirty job" of writing names of perceived enemies and doing the actual beatings, killing of people and destroying their sources of livelihoods. Informed by this, efforts to promote peace and stability in rural communities cannot be achieved if efforts are not made to mend torn relations between neighbors, family members, relatives and also relations between ordinary villagers and their local leaders. Communities need to continue to be reminded that community relations supersede political party relations as the latter is periodic and only becomes relevant towards elections where politicians just come to seek votes by all means necessary and as soon as the elections are over they vanish and it is the perpetrators who are left alone to deal with the consequences of victimizing fellow villagers.

Villagers in Buhera formed peace clubs where they meet regularly and initiate peace building activities in the area. Some of the activities that have been taking place in the peace clubs are Nhimbes- community weeding ceremonies, sport activities, burial societies, face the community interface meetings. Membership cuts across all political divide and ages. Heal Zimbabwe attended four of these activities on Monday, 30 April 2012 and applauded villagers in ward 5 and 8 for their efforts towards rebuilding relations and trust among each other. It is clear that these efforts will go a long way in preventing future recurrence of violence which left 13 people dead in 2008 in Buhera district and hundreds more in the country. Efforts by the grassroots can only be cemented by sincerity to uphold peace and stability on the part of political leaders. Heal Zimbabwe Trust continue with its call upon the political leaders in Zimbabwe to walk the talk in their pledge to uphold peace before, during and after elections.

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