A new report was launched recently at a meeting of human rights defenders in Zimbabwe titled “A Short History of Organised Violence and Torture in Zimbabwe (1972-2020)”. It confronts one of the worst evils of humankind going back to the pre-colonial era. It shows that nothing has changed since the so-called Second Republic. It shows the power of violence in making the people powerless.

The report, as the title suggests, covers the periods of mass violence from 1972, the substantive beginning of the Liberation War that brought independence to Zimbabwe, through all the periods up to 2020, and after the coup in 2017.

Based on series of previous reports released during 2020 and 2021 by a consortium of Zimbabwean human rights organisations – the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum, the Counselling Services Unit (CSU), the Heal Zimbabwe Trust (HZT), the Research and Advocacy Unit (RAU) and Veritas – the consolidated report makes for very sorry reading.

The report obviously considers the organised violence and torture (OVT) during the 1980s, the so-called Gukurahundi. But it also provides data on periods of mass displacement, such as Operation Murambatsvina and the Fast Track Land Reform Programme.

After gobbling taxpayers’ money for 10 years, the NPRC has nothing to point at except the Patriot Act and expensive Range Rovers.

A very substantial portion of the report deals with the OVT that has taken place during Zimbabwean elections since 2000; this has great relevance in 2023 as Zimbabwe heads towards yet another election in which the stakes are higher than ever before. It also profiles the attempts made by civil society to provide assistance to the tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of victims and survivors over the past 50 years. 

And, finally, the report demonstrates the lack of change since the coup in 2017 and the so-called New Dispensation.

Failure of the liberation agenda

At the launch I reflected that the report is an indictment of us as a people. It shows the failure of the liberation agenda as ordinary people still live in fear of their government under the weight of oppression. They cannot exercise their fundamental rights. I reflected that instead of celebrating 10 years of a progressive constitution, we must hide in shame as this report shows our failure to build the Zimbabwe envisioned in the 2013 constitution. 

Read more in Daily Maverick: In looking forward, I believe the report is evidence of the urgent need for transitional justice in Zimbabwe. 

Zimbabwe needs a second liberation – from the liberators themselves

Zimbabwe is a member of the African Union. In 2019, together with other African states, Zimbabwe committed to implementing the African Union Transitional Justice Policy Framework. Years down the line, nothing has been done. 

Having worked very hard in support of the National Peace and Reconciliation Commission (NPRC), the report makes me ashamed at the realisation that our conflict-prevention mechanisms have failed dismally to tame the monster called violence. After gobbling taxpayers’ money for 10 years, the NPRC has nothing to point at except the Patriot Act and expensive Range Rovers.

The impetus for transitional justice began 20 years ago, at a groundbreaking conference in South Africa: Civil Society and Justice in Zimbabwe. This conference began a strong campaign for transitional justice, emphasising the need to focus on the period beginning in 1965. 

The search for transitional justice is likely to have been an influence on the NPRC being established in the 2013 amended constitution, and led to the formation of the National Transitional Justice Working Group (NTJWG) in 2014. The NTJWG has assiduously pressured the NPRC and the government to make real on all the promises to deal with transitional justice, but to little effect.

I worry that even as civil society we have been tamed over the years by over professionalisation.

From the ashes of the NPRC, a people-led transitional justice movement must rise. We must acknowledge that we have given the current state an opportunity to implement transitional justice through the NPRC and it has failed. It has failed because it is a perpetrator state with neither the will nor the capacity to deal with the violence that it believes in. 

Anyone who believes that even traditional leaders’ transitional justice work under the current state will thrive is deluded. There is evidence that transitional justice in any form is not needed by the current state. Minister of Justice Ziyambi Ziyambi told the UN Human Rights Council that Gukurahundi had been resolved.

A house is destroyed in Chitungwiza, about 30km south of Harare, on 17 June 2005 as part of Robert Mugabe’s government clean-up campaign, Operation Murambatsvina (Drive Out Filth)/Operation Restore Order. (Photo: AFP/STR)

Activists must introspect

But as activists we must also reflect. The report celebrates the work of civil society in documenting OVT in Zimbabwe. I acknowledge that, but a more robust introspection is needed. I worry that even as civil society we have been tamed over the years by over professionalisation. 

We have in a way contributed to the disempowerment of the communities we are working in. We must shift the power back to the people. We must bring back citizen power to the conversation on human rights and transitional justice. 

Read more in Daily Maverick: Zimbabwe at 43: Portents of a deepening authoritarian rule by Zanu-PF

I miss the good old days when the minister of education would think twice before increasing school fees because thousands of angry parents would besiege government offices, demanding reduction. That was because people’s power was real. We must, as activists, go back to a struggle approach to human rights, acknowledging that human rights originated from and are ultimately guaranteed by legitimate resistance. 

A woman runs away from Zimbabwe Republic Police officers who are beating up protesting Movement for Democratic Change supporters at the party’s headquarters in Harare on 20 November 2019. (Photo: EPA-EFE / Aaron Ufumeli)

The human rights struggle today is a liberation struggle, just as important as the struggle that brought national independence. The difference is that this is a struggle that we choose to wage without violence, because we are seeing violence destroying everything that we ever hoped to build during independence.  

The new report, “A Short History of Organised Violence and Torture in Zimbabwe (1972-2020)”, reminds us today that the work of liberation is ongoing, and we must double our efforts on all fronts. It reminds us not to allow us to get used to the ugly reality of violence. We must still raise our voices against violence, even as our voices shake. DM

Dzikamai Bere is the National Director of the Zimbabwe Human Rights Association (ZimRights), Zimbabwe’s first post-independence indigenous human rights movement with more than 250,000 members across Zimbabwe. Comments to this article can be send to [email protected]