Tackling political and social violence in Zimbabwe · 2017, after 37 years of leadership, the country was traumatised; ... which killed 3 and 17 people respectively. These incidents

Tackling political and social violence in Zimbabwe2020 Case Study

2 Social and Political Violence: 2020 Case Study

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Christian Aid 35 Lower Marsh Waterloo London SE1 7RL T: +44 (0) 20 7620 4444 E: [email protected] W: christianaid.org.uk UK registered charity no. 1105851 Company no. 5171525 Scot charity no. SC039150 NI charity no. XR94639 Company no. NI059154 ROI charity no. CHY 6998 Company no. 426928 The Christian Aid name and logo are trademarks of Christian Aid © Christian Aid 20 June 2020

Authors:

The Centre for Conflict Management and Transformation and Christian Aid Ireland.

Acknowledgements:

The Centre for Conflict Management and Transformation and Christian Aid Ireland would like to thank all staff members, faith leaders, buddies’ leaders as well as community members and leaders who contributed to this report. We hope that the results from the project’s dialogues and other engagement processes will inspire stakeholders to embrace our vision of ‘A society where people manage and deal with conflicts constructively.

.

Social and Political Violence: 2020 Case Study 3

Contents

Introduction 4

Dealing with trauma 4

Community-led peace building 6

Influencing national bodies 8

Overall key learnigns 10

End notes 11

Cover: Faith leader from Epworth speaking at a meeting of community members


Introduction

On the eve of Mugabe’s resignation in November

2017, after 37 years of leadership, the country was

traumatised; traumatised from decades of brutality,

silence, and economic failure. Although among

Zimbabweans, there has been a spectrum of hope

since 2017; new hope, cautious hope, shattered hope,

there remains a strong tension between the

determined wish for a new era and the prevailing

instability, distrust, and relentless fear.

Instead of rebuilding and restoring hope, Mugabe’s

successor, Emmerson Mnangagwa has continued with

a dominant, violent kind of rule. Since his election in

2018, there have been two major outbreaks of

political violence. Protests against election results in

August 2018, and again against the government for

rising fuel prices in January 2019 resulted in a military

crackdown, which killed 3 and 17 people respectively.

These incidents also saw high levels of beatings,

torture, kidnappings and sexual abuse.

Epworth Community leaders attending a CCMT facilitated peace building meeting in 2019

State institutions, including the judiciary and some

sections of the military have openly backed the ruling

party ZANU PF, which has been crucial to their

monopoly of power and success in suppressing civic

dissent. Such political partisanship has permeated

throughout Zimbabwean society, influencing and

controlling all levels of government from the national

to district committees, ward councillors, local ZANU PF

chairpersons and traditional leaders. This affects all

areas of life from voting to access to justice to access

to well water and has driven a climate of intimidation

and impunity.

To address some of these issues, Christian Aid’s

partner, the Centre for Conflict Management and

Transformation (CCMT) has been working with youth

and community leaders from the Harare suburbs of

Epworth, Chitungwiza and Mbare, which are hotspots

for politically motivated violence and violence against

women and girls.

CCMT’S work has mainly aimed to contribute to:

- empowering youths to become active citizens

that promote peace and community cohesion

by becoming peace mentors, promoting non-

violence, and avoiding manipulation by

political parties for political gain

- increasing capacity of community leaders to

lead group discussions and counselling within

their communities to prevent violence and

respond to survivors of violence, particularly

women and children, who have historically

been overlooked as victims of politically

motivated violence.

CCMT was formed in 2002 and has been working to

transform the ways in which Zimbabwean society

deals with conflict. It partners with local government,

local groups and communities to find more

constructive ways to deal with conflicts and to bring

competing groups together. CCMT's vision is to end

conflict in Zimbabwe and build a new democracy

where human rights and the rule of law are central.

This brief learning paper draws out key insights from

CCMT’s approaches to reducing conflict, with the aim

of contributing to a better understanding of how to

support local peacebuilding in Zimbabwe. It is divided

into three parts: dealing with trauma; community led

peace building and influencing national commissions,

authorities and parliamentarians. This paper also

identifies links between local peacebuilding

approaches and national efforts to pursue peace. It is

based on interviews and focus group discussions with

local faith leaders, community leaders, authorities and

community members as well as CCMT staff and

partners.

Dealing with trauma

Lesson one: Addressing trauma through individual

and group counselling needs is critical for preparing


people to participate in solution-based discussions

on reducing conflict. However, participation is

improved when other needs, such as legal and

economic, are supported.

The levels of trauma and distrust among the

Zimbabwean population have crystallised over years

of political violence, civil unrest and economic

instability. CCMT recognised that across the three

communities of Chitungwiza, Epworth and Mbare,

trauma has various effects. It can either cause

community members to withdraw from politics

completely or use politics as a forum for vengeance.

The International Committee of the Red Cross’ own

global analysis reflects this link that “one of the most

significant consequences of armed conflict and other

situations of violence is their impact on the mental

health and psychosocial well-being of the people

affected’. The social consequences of not addressing

trauma such as anxiety, fear, depression and anger can

lead to community members opting out of initiatives

(local committees, community organisations, voting)

or having thoughts of revenge.1

Mrs Mudzingwa, Faith Leader from Epworth facilitating a trauma and healing session, 2019

Across the three communities, trauma dominates

many people’s ability to talk openly about past

injustices or take part in peaceful dialogue and conflict

resolution. The violence in August 2018 and January

2019, exacerbated these existing levels of fear and

anger. According to Human Rights Watch, the highest

rates of killings in January 2019 in Harare were in the

suburbs of Epworth, Chitungwiza, Mbare and Warren

Park. 2 Reports from Epworth record injuries from

gunshots and beatings but also several cases of rape,

sexual violence, and violence against people with

disabilities. Chitungwiza also suffered extra-judicial

killings, gunshot and other assaults, destruction of

property as well as harassment and threats. 3

A workshop participant explaining how violent conflicts affect persons with disabilities

In 2018, CCMT began to support community members

helping victims of abuse access a psychotherapist

through trauma-healing workshops and one to one

sessions. Gradually specialised support extended to

faith leaders, as respected role models, to lead

‘community healing’ sessions and counsel members of

their own congregations. A total of 33 faith leaders

were trained and as a result are now leading

community healing sessions each month, supporting

214 women and 49 men. Over time the psychotherapy

sessions have included more men and people with

disabilities and have improved people’s ability to react

and manage conflict more positively. Effort has been

made to dismantle the lens of victim/perpetrator,

which has led to a notable improvement in the way

people relate to each other, including a reduction in

antagonism and people ‘agreeing to disagree’. 4

Individuals reported that sharing their story helped

them to gain confidence and feel a sense of belonging

and acceptance within their community. And the

communities in turn responded more positively and

now acknowledge the psychological well-being of

survivors, encourage people to tell their own stories,

and build trust within between victims and local

authorities.

Support to establishing an effective referral system to

legal expertise also proved important for dealing with

trauma, both for communities and their faith leaders.

So far, some of the faith leaders report that their skills

have supported people to share their stories openly

with each other and gain confidence to share with the

police. 5 Faith leaders also acknowledged that prayer

is not always what a survivor needs especially when

prayers and sermons do not specifically tackle issues

of conflict and influence perpetrators, who also attend

the services.


CCMT referred 15 survivors needing legal assistance to

Women and Law in Southern Africa (WLSA). They were

able to provide legal support (bail funds, court

representation, appeals), as well as helping those

unwilling to go to court by submitting complaints to

the National Peace and Reconciliation Commission

(NPRC) or the Zimbabwean Human Rights

Commission(ZHRC).

Women in Epworth on their way to a clinic

WLSA partners with the Victim Support Unit under

NPRC and supports female survivors of violence to

access safe spaces and participation in national

consultations organised by the NPRC. Furthermore,

WLSA was able to refer women to counselling. CCMT

organised meetings with 150 women and young

people and helped survivors pursuing damages from

rape, torture and assaults.

In addition to providing psychological and legal

support many people are also in need of economic

assistance. Many people’s livelihoods are destroyed

during violence, either through injury where they can

no longer work or destruction of property and goods.

For survivors to increase and sustain their confidence

and positive contribution to their communities, that

they gained through counselling, economic

independence through stable livelihoods is key.

Community - led peace building Lesson two: Creating community structures to

monitor and mitigate conflict is very effective,

especially when they can work with local authorities.

However, this is only sustainable when national

political leadership is genuinely promoting non-

violence.

Understanding the complexity of violence has been a

key step in approaching conflict resolution and

peacebuilding in Zimbabwe. Although outright

violence might not occur on a regular basis, the levels

of trauma and distrust have incubated in less obvious

ways. Political polarisation is one.

The relationship between the ruling party Zimbabwe

African Union Patriotic Front (ZANU PF) and

opposition party Movement for Democratic Change

(MDC Alliance) has manifested in a deep split among

citizens, communities and provinces. In the 2018

general election, MDC won a majority in three

provinces – Matabeleland North (east), Manicaland (in

the west) and Harare. In Epworth, Mbare and

Chitungwiza, all members of parliament and senators

elected were belonging to MDC – Alliance. 6 However,

councillors and mayors of the three suburbs are often

split between the ruling party and the opposition

causing political tensions that have a direct knock on

effect to the daily life of communities and limit access

to basic services.

Chitungwiza

In Chitungwiza, there are 10 ZANU-PF Councillors and

15 MDC Councillors, and residents have long

maintained that land and water are unfairly

distributed depending on political affiliation. This is

not only a key cause of violence but also fertile ground

for mobilising further violence and disruption ahead of

elections.7 In early 2018, CCMT supported the

establishment of two buddie circles (groups consisting

of 50 young men and 50 young women) to discuss, in

a coordinated way, possibilities for managing conflict

issues. Recognising the influence of political

polarisation, the buddie circles brought ZANU PF and

MDC Alliance youth district leadership together to sign

a peace pledge promising to behave peacefully

towards each other before, during and after elections. 8 On 22 June 2018, the Buddie Circles also hosted an

inter-political party peace meeting with 30 aspiring

council candidates, including the Mayor of

Chitungwiza9, and subsequently ran a series of

meetings between the local council and local

communities over the denial of the rights to land,

water and economic opportunities.


From Left to Right: Pastor Matyora, Chitungwiza Church Leader, Margaret Chogugudza, Chitungwiza Buddie Mentor and Ms Banda, Epworth Community Leader

For the first-time buddie mentors and community

members are seeing councillors from different parties

speak with more tolerance and are working together

with community members to better understand some

of the causes of violence. A number of initiatives have

also been taken where councillors have started to

work with a group of young people to avoid early

marriage and find jobs/ sources of livelihood; reduced

regulations to buy land by requiring a smaller deposit

and more favourable repayments (i.e. start

repayments of the full amount after 90 days spread

over two years); instead of making informal work

illegal, requested small businesses to register in

designated areas for trading so they are licensed and

pay tax, and are therefore protected from being

moved on or uprooted by police.

Epworth

In Epworth, there is a concentration of opposition

councillors with five from MDC and two from ZANU-

PF. The highly populated area suffers similar

challenges to Chitungwiza, and land and business

licenses are allocated along party lines, almost always

resulting in violence. In 2018, violent clashes resulted

in the death of a police officer and several injuries

including a Member of Parliament. The clashes were a

result of allegations that the Epworth Local Board

(local administrative body) is a front for the ruling

party. Local communities also accused the Board of

illegally downsizing land belonging to political

opponents and in some cases dispossessing them of

their land.

Through CCMT’s support in conflict resolution and

peacebuilding, the buddie circles in Epworth

established a Land Allocation Tracking Committee

(made up of six women and seven men) to monitor

anomalies in the allocation of land. For transparency

and accountability, the information documented is

shared with the buddie circles social media platforms

and with the Epworth Local Board. As a result, in 2019,

community leaders who are members of the Land

Allocation Tracking Committee diffused potential

conflicts by alerting cases to the Minister of Local

Government, Public Works and National Housing.

Community members also observed councillors and

police talking about peace, and councillors exploring

land policies to avoid further conflicts.

Mbare

The buddie circles set up in Mbare identified water

disputes as a key cause of violence. The ruling party,

ZANU-PF, was reported to have taken control of most

of the boreholes, which were allegedly built by

International NGOs, and were barring access to

community members perceived to be pro-opposition.

This led to violent clashes which not only injured

people, but also resulted in the vandalism of these

boreholes putting people at further risk of waterborne

diseases like typhoid, cholera and diarrhoea.

Youth attending an experience sharing session with CA Ireland colleagues in 2019

As a result, the buddie circles brought the conflicting

parties together to dialogue and eventually

established water point committees for each borehole

in Mbare. These committees include representatives

from all groups and are responsible for ensuring equal

access to the boreholes and protecting them against

vandalism. Community members observed that

people are now more aware of their right to access

water. There has been a shift in understanding that

basic human rights to land and water are transactional

(i.e. voting for a party candidate will be rewarded by

getting more access to a water well) to knowing that

they are rights in and of themselves. Furthermore,


discussion on fairer water management has opened

conversations with local councillors and contributed

to better relationships between them and community

members.

However, across the communities, there are still

serious barriers that need to be addressed:

Gender disparities – CCMT’s efforts to ensure equal

representation of men and women in buddie circles to

promote peace positively highlighted the role of

women and how they find it easier to bring different

political parties together. They more readily

acknowledged that certain issues cut across the

political divide. For example, during the inter-party

peace dialogues they agreed that the exclusion of

women in influential political positions has a negative

effect on all parties and prevents the evolution of a

genuine democratic system. They also helped to bring

the issue of gender-based violence more to the

forefront. Yet, it was reported that a higher proportion

of men attempted to resolve conflict than women.

Some of the reasons identified for this were: limited

knowledge of rights among women; limited political

consciousness; and fear and shame to report abusive

husbands.10 In addition, women’s involvement in

committees and as buddy mentors didn’t help to

highlight or mitigate gender inequality as a root cause

of conflict over land and water.

Structural factors – Despite peacebuilding progress in

certain pockets, the high levels of police corruption,

political partisanship at the national level and poverty

make violence and instability more likely. There is little

trust in the police to hold perpetrators of violence

accountable as they are divided along party lines and

often require bribes or sexual favours. At the same

time, people stated that the police also have little

room to be politically neutral given the general

political culture. Partisan politics is so deep that

people fear associating with other party members in

case of perceptions from friends or fellow members

that they are traitors.11 Poverty also causes its own

web of problems like slums with little opportunity for

people to engage in the formal economy creating

youth militia, criminal gangs and other social

problems. Such groups can be exploited during

elections or other major events for political gain

leading again to violence and conflict.

Influencing national bodies Lesson three: Despite slow progress, supporting and

influencing national bodies remains important as an

incentive for local voices to stay active and strong in

their defence of rights and peace.

One of the positive consequences to emerge from the

violent episodes has been a moderate opening for

national reconciliation and peacebuilding. In the past

two years the President has called for dialogue on the

massacres committed by government in 1980s and

promoted parliament to uphold the constitution.12

However, civil society and citizens are tempered in

their hope owing to the perceived lack of genuine

political will. For example, the military continues to

play a dominant role in law enforcement, undermining

any trust between citizens and state. The NPRC and

ZHRC face challenges also, especially lack of political

and financial support, and lack of advancement of

cases through the justice system.

Epworth Community Leaders attending a consultation meeting with local Council officials

Some areas of hope for civil society exist. In 2019, the

NPRC launched thematic committees comprised of

local leaders, faith and business leaders on knowledge

management (research on scope and causes of

violence, and mitigating strategies), gender and

diversity, as well as on prevention and non-recurrence

of violence. These intend to enable the NPRC to

conduct community outreach and consultation

workshops. The ZHRC has been strong in their criticism

of the government and the violence in 2018 and 2019,

issuing monitoring reports that document human

rights violations occurring.

CCMT has taken advantage of these opportunities by

promoting trauma healing and community dialogues

as a means of strengthening the newly established

provincial peace committees by the NPRC. CCMT was


also invited to be one of a four-member team within

the NPRC prevention and non-recurrence

subcommittee that addresses among other things

transformation through community dialogues and

trauma healing. CCMT supported NPRC consultations

in Chitungwiza and Epworth where a number of

complaints were collected from young people and

other community members. Other grievances relating

to human rights violations (destruction of birth

certificates during conflict) have been referred to the

ZHRC. The NPRC complemented the active youth

participation in Epworth particularly. Yet, they

acknowledged that listening to individual complaints

and bringing them to the institutional level for a

nationwide reconciliation process will be a big

challenge.

Efforts are still in place for the independent

Commissions to provide more opportunities for local

leaders to initiate community dialogue, engage with

official NPRC consultations, supporting the collection

of evidence on human rights violations and

coordinating advocacy for political support and

respect for the Commissions. 13 The NPRC is also

working closely with the Zimbabwe Electoral

Commission to review the peace pledge from 2018 to

check that political parties are keeping to it, as well as

promoting it as a tool for the next election.


Overall key learnings:

Trauma healing

➢ Counselling is a necessary support for any

progress in community peacebuilding as it

helps individuals heal to the extent needed to

take part in group reconciliation.

➢ Having a reliable system to refer survivors to

psychological or legal support is critical.

➢ Faith and community leaders provide a strong

platform for leading community healing given

their status and influence in society, and

potential roles as mentors and role models.

➢ Psychological and legal support can only go so

far and further support is required to respond

to the changing needs of individuals over time.

For example, when survivors are on the path

towards psychological recovery and then need

economic support to rejuvenate their

livelihood after losing it during the violence.

➢ There is a continuous challenge in engaging

men, including young men, due to fear of

social ridicule if they admit they need help, as

well as engaging people with disabilities.

➢ Continued support is required for councillors

to overcome their reluctance in engaging and

supporting reconciliation concerning political

conflicts.

Influencing community led peacebuilding

➢ Identifying a buddy system with youth

facilitators helps identify issues that matter to

young people and generate solutions that will

be community owned and executed.

➢ Ensuring gender balance in local community

structures is critical for engaging more women

and recognising their contributions in

peacebuilding. However, more needs to be

done to increase women’s knowledge of

rights, politics, and holding perpetrators of

violence against women and girls to account.

➢ Community committees for monitoring and

resolving specific conflict issues (i.e. water,

land) are successful.

➢ Engaging local authorities in collective

solutions (like water point and land

committees) helps to build trust and a more

accountable relationship between

communities and local government.

➢ Although certain bridges can be built between

members of political party at the local level, it

can often depend on individuals and can be

easily undermined by national level leadership

or political culture that promotes

partisanship.

Zimbabwe Republic Police Officer following a peace dialogue meeting proceeding with women

Influencing national actors

➢ Building on government initiatives, however

small, at the national level, can keep

peacebuilding and national reconciliation on

the state’s agenda and in the public

consciousness.

➢ It is a challenge for local organisations to

ensure individual and community concerns

are taken seriously at the national level, and

therefore sourcing and including community

voices should be a clear objective of the

government.


End notes

1 http://treeoflifezimbabwe.org/node/61 2

https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/03/12/zimbabwe-excessive-force-used-against-protesters

3 http://www.hrforumzim.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Shutdown-Atrocities-Report-6-February-2019.pdf

4 One to one interview with Capacity Skills Dvlpmt & Clinical Family Therapist Practitioner, Mr. Choga.

5 Focus group discussions in Harare, August 2019

6 http://veritaszim.net/node/3107 7 CCMT’s annual report to CA, 2018 8 https://www.newsday.co.zw/2018/02/zanu-pf-

mdc-youths-sign-peace-deal/ https://www.zimeye.net/2018/02/28/political-parties-youth-sign-historic-peace-pact/

9 https://www.newsday.co.zw/2018/06/mayor-leads-30-political-candidates-in-peace-pact-ahead-of-elections/

10 Reconciliation Barometer 2019: Successes and Failures of Reconciliation Efforts Carried Out by the Centre for Conflict Management and Transformation (CCMT) in Epworth, Mbare and Chitungwiza.

11 Ibid 12 http://www.hrforumzim.org/wp-

content/uploads/2019/08/The-New-Deception_What-has-changed.pdf

13 Ministry of Finance & Economic Development. National Budget statement, 14 November 2019 page 122 file:///C:/Users/GKilcullen/Downloads/The%202020%20National%20Budget%20Statement.pdf

http://treeoflifezimbabwe.org/node/61




http://www.hrforumzim.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Shutdown-Atrocities-Report-6-February-2019.pdf



http://veritaszim.net/node/3107

https://www.newsday.co.zw/2018/02/zanu-pf-mdc-youths-sign-peace-deal/

https://www.newsday.co.zw/2018/02/zanu-pf-mdc-youths-sign-peace-deal/

https://www.newsday.co.zw/2018/06/mayor-leads-30-political-candidates-in-peace-pact-ahead-of-elections/



http://www.hrforumzim.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/The-New-Deception_What-has-changed.pdf



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Documents

Tackling political and social violence in Zimbabwe · 2017, after 37 years of leadership, the country was traumatised; ... which killed 3 and 17 people respectively. These incidents