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Peace building: A community effort
Zimbabwe Human Rights Association (ZimRights)
September 08, 2010

The people of Uzumba, under Headman Muswe of Mashonaland East have called for peace building and other nation building activities to be community events organised with the District Administrator's assistance. This was agreed by a crowd of about seventy who converged for the peace building public meeting at a homestead in the area.

The aim of the meeting was to engage Uzumba residents and their leaders into a peace building debate, so that at the end of the day they are able to come up with the best remedies of peace building in their community, and how they can sustain this spirit of peace within their society. Thus during the discussion the people came up with their definition of peace, identified elements of peace and peace barriers.

Although there were no traditional leaders present the people highlighted that peace can only come to pass through truth and reconciliation. Politics was described as the main culprit to national instability. Residents testified that they are turning against each other because they are now relating on political grounds and are intolerant to different political views they have. While people are beating each other and destroying each other's property politicians continue to exploit this situation for self-development. Politicians are only seen in communities when they are campaigning and become strangers the moment they are voted for.

The discussion served as an eye opener for most of the people. They concluded that peace and development go beyond politics and that they are the main actors in their community's future. Thus their community's peace lies in their hands.

ZimRights was encouraged by the participants to intensify such awareness and development programmes in the area. The few who were there also called for the organisation to work with the DA in the future so that more people are involved in these discussions which they tagged as very helpful. They also said that this will encourage their traditional leaders to participate and spearhead the programme in the long term and also encourage other residents to participate freely.

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