NPRC defends democracy and human rights — Chada
In January 2018, the National Peace and Reconciliation Commission Bill was signed into law. This provided a legal framework for the National Peace and Reconciliation Commission (NPRC) which was sworn in early 2016. Now that the statutory path has been cleared, what can Zimbabweans expect from the commission? The Herald’s Leroy Dzenga (LD) interviewed Dr Geoffrey Chada (GC), one of the eight NPRC commissioners, to hear about their mandate and plans.
LD: We have heard about the NPRC, but what does it exist to do? What are the key functions of the NPRC? GC: The NPRC stands for National Peace and Reconciliation Commission. The NPRC is one of the independent Commissions established by the Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment (No 20) Act in 2013. The NPRC has a very broad constitutional mandate. A constitutional mandate simply means the authority to carry out a particular assignment given by the Constitution. According to the Constitution (Section 252), the NPRC’s main work is to realise post-conflict justice, peace, healing and reconciliation. It is a temporary commission with a lifespan of 10 years. It is expected to finish its work within a 10-year period. There is no agreement yet as to when the 10-year period really starts. The questions to be answered are: Did the 10-year period start in 2013 when the Constitution was signed into law? Did the 10-year period start when the commissioners were sworn in on February 24, 2016, or did it start on 5 January 2018, the day the NPRC was gazetted? The commissioners are waiting for finalisation on this matter. Since the NPRC is a Constitutional Commission set up to support democracy and to promote a culture of human rights, it has to be accessible to every citizen particularly those who are victims, witnesses and perpetrators of past human rights violations. LD: How were the NPRC commissioners appointed? GC: Parliament ran advertisements calling for nominations to the NPRC looking for people of reputation, integrity and expertise. The nominated people were screened. There were 33 men and women who were called for interviews by a panel of parliamentarians. They were reduced to 12 candidates. The 12 candidates were then submitted to the President for final appointment which comprised four men and women. The chairperson of the commission was the only commissioner appointed without an interview. The commissioners were to be appointed for five years with a chance for renewal
only once. LD: Who are the current commissioners? GC: According to the Constitution, the NPRC should be composed of nine members including the chairperson. There is Lillian Chigwedere, Geoffrey Chada, Patience Chiradza, Golden Chekenyere, Choice Ndoro, Charles Masunungure, Leslie Ncube and Nelty Masanhu. Dr Cyril Ndebele was the chairman and ninth commissioner, but he died in 2016. LD: How does the commission
account to the people? GC: The NPRC is required to produce annual reports during that 10-year period. Parliament can also require additional reports that it deems necessary. The commission uses these reports to make recommendations to members of Parliament to make laws on specific issues. The NPRC must submit to Parliament the reports outlining its full operations and activities. The commissioners must be independent and not involved in party politics. LD: The NPRC Act was gazetted in January 2018. What was the commission doing since it was sworn in close to two years ago? GC: From the day we were sworn in we went into a capacity building programme which was financed by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The Act is the one that releases resources through treasury for us to use. So from the time of swearing in, we had no funds of our own to go into the field and actually implement our plans. What then happened was that UNDP and NPRC sat down and agreed on a capacity-building programme. The commissioners went through training, people came from Zimbabwe, South Africa, Sierra Leone, Rwanda giving us skills that we would need when the time to operate came. We were very fortunate that we had time to be schooled in the discipline of peace-building. LD: There is the setting up of the NPRC secretariat which is said to be work in progress. When can we expect it to be functional? GC: The NPRC Act is now operational, but the Consolidated Funds Act from Treasury has not been passed yet. That is the instrument that releases what we budgeted for. At this stage the Consolidated Funds Act is still work in progress and Treasury has not been able to release those funds. For us to have the secretariat, we must have the organogram of the people who will be running the secretariat. When treasury looks at the structure and the levels, that is when they will have an idea of how much it will cost to run the secretariat. We have sent the structure to Treasury pending approval. Once it is approved, we will advertise for people who are going to be running the secretariat. We can’t recruit people before Treasury approves our budget. However, this does not mean that we are idle. Right now we are using certain aspects of the Consolidated Fund instrument, there are funds that Treasury can release even before the Act is passed. We will be accessing that money from next week. We are starting dialogue with the provincial stakeholders. We are going to have two teams in Matabeleland South and another one in Mashonaland Central where we will be engaging with stakeholders, including the traditional leadership, community leadership for about a week. LD: What exactly are you looking to achieve as you engage with communities? GC: The aim is to collect information from them which we will use to formulate our strategic plan. We are not going to impose things that need to be done. We want the community to tell us the things they think are most important; we want their priorities to be our priorities. Peace-building is an inclusive enterprise, we want the community to participate in finding solutions to the problems of the past and present. We will be working with the community; this is why our first port of call is to hear the views of the community. That information will be used to design programmes which we will take back to the community. Our preliminary engagement should be done by March. LD: Dr Cyril Ndebele, who chaired the commission died in 2016. How has the absence of a chairperson affected the operations of the commission? GC: When Dr Ndebele died, the deputy chairperson became the acting chairperson. So Mrs Lillian Chigwedere has been the acting chairwoman since then. All things that needed to be done were done accordingly. But, it would be good if we had the chairman in place because we have travelled two years, it’s not a short time. We would have wanted to build the team together, to build an organisational culture together. As it is, he or she will have to learn what we have already learnt. How are we going to teach them quickly enough that they catch up? Because when people of different disciplines and different experiences come together, there is time to build a team. LD: The NPRC has as one of its roles to identify areas of possible conflict and prevention. How are you going to go about it? GC: There is going to be a research department headed by skilled and experienced research people who will work with the secretariat. These people will be able to go into the field and find out what is happening, identify issues coming out of communities which may lead to conflict. Through such information we can then come up with programmes to address those issues as a conflict prevention strategy. For instance, we are now going to elections and we are already developing a peace education programme which we are going to take to the communities. Peace is the foundation for any meaningful development for any
country. LD: There are people who are using past conflict areas for political reasons. For example recently, Gukurahundi has been very topical. How is the commission going to deal with people using past conflicts to score points? GC: The issue of Gukurahundi has been in the papers over the days; it has been a hotcake. We are aware of the unfortunate reality that there are a number of individuals and organisations that are cashing in on this emotive issue. What we are going to do, is we are going to gather the people who are in areas which were affected. We are going to listen to them telling us what it is that they want us to do. We are not going to take answers to them; our intention is to listen to them and formulate a plan around what they would have said. This is how we are going to approach the Gukurahundi issue, we are going to go through the chiefs and through the community leaders. They are going to guide us on how they would want the issue to be addressed. We want solutions which are sustainable, acceptable; solutions which will heal the wounds that were inflicted on these people. Of course, there can never be complete compensation for someone who lost their father or husband but reparations may help the healing process. But our driving principle is we do not have the answers; they are going to come from the people. LD: So as a commission, which times are you going to focus on: Is it conflict in post-independence Zimbabwe or even during the colonial era? GC: That decision is going to be informed by our consultations, let us say in our consultations 60 percent of people we engage say we want you to start from 1960, we will not argue with them. Even if some say we want you to start from 1890 when the white settlers came here and took our minerals as well as livestock, we are still grieved by their actions. We will start there. LD: Besides Gukurahundi, what other local conflicts in post-independence will you be looking into? GC: There are many, the prominent ones are 2008. Even towards the 2000 election there was violence. The movement towards the land reform, there was violence. These are things that standout, every community has suffered violence. For instance Murambatsvina in 2004 and 2005, many people lost a lot of money. They built beautiful homes which were demolished; people became poorer as a result of that violence. Murambatsvina is one of those issues we are going to focus on. There are issues in Chipinge, Mount Darwin, Mashonaland West, among other areas. Our dialogue with the communities is going to give us a fully appreciation of the grievances held by people as is prescribed by our mandate. Each province has its own painful spot; those are what we intend to deal with to take the nation forward.