Talking transitional justice
The discussion around transitional justice and national healing has grown to the point that we’ve created a special index page to track the issue on Kubatana.
One of the interesting documents on the subject that I’ve put up recently is the Research and Advocacy Unit’s report Human rights violations against women and truth commissions, which looks at how women are effected by political violence and what lessons Zimbabwe can draw from truth commission processes in South Africa, Sierra Leone and Kenya. It calls for a Zimbabwean process that is open to and supportive of women victims of human rights abuses.
The Taking transitional justice to the people – Outreach report by the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum shares insights from a series of consultative meetings organised by the HR Forum with 442 people in 13 different rural constituencies across Zimbabwe. As the report points, out people from all walks of life in Zimbabwe have experienced political violence and other human rights abuses in the country’s history – and a similarly wide range of people participated in the HR Forum meetings. It was clear from these meetings that people want to talk about their past, and they need the platform to do so – in a way that is not biased or partisan.