Gukurahundi commission to open Facebook Page

THE National Peace and Reconciliation Commission (NPRC) will soon open an official Facebook page to create a platform for members of the public to air their views on the post-independence disturbances as part of the national healing exercise.

The post independence disturbances, commonly known as Gukurahundi, mainly affected people in the Midlands and Matabeleland region.

In an interview yesterday, Vice-President Kembo Mohadi, who is also responsible for the cluster on Peace and Reconciliation, said the new dispensation has since shown commitment to engage people on Gukurahundi atrocities and human rights violations through the enactment of the Peace and Reconciliation Act in January this year, which also created the NPRC.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa signed the NPRC Bill into law to operationalise the NPRC that was appointed in 2014 by former President Robert Mugabe.

VP Mohadi said the hearings would be conducted to resolve post independence conflicts through dialogue.

"The NPRC is there to foster dialogue so that people can talk, find each other and build a united Zimbabwe and we are going to do that.

"We are actually going to have a Facebook page where we will invite everybody to air their views as we strive to reach every individual because we cannot reach everyone through visiting various places for hearings, but we want to reach everyone so that we hear your views, tell us what you want us to do and then we do that because we are a listening Government," he said.

VP Mohadi said the recent hearings which were done in Bulawayo were just samplings.

"Constitutionally they (hearings) were not supposed to be done because there was no chairperson at the time but now that there is a chairperson they are going to be done. They did not even have a strategy that we had approved as Government. Now that there is a chairperson, they now have a strategy which is going to be approved by the Presidency," he said.

VP Mohadi said the eight-member NPRC chaired by former Labour Court judge Justice Sello Nare is finalising its strategic plan.

"The gist of the whole thing is that people of Zimbabwe should talk. In fact, we need them to dialogue despite divergence of views, whether we agree or not agree with what other people say, but we must talk because if we don't talk there is nothing that we can achieve in terms of unity," he said.

VP Mohadi said Zimbabwe is a unitary State and called on citizens to understand each other through dialogue.

"A lot of things have happened in Zimbabwe pre-independence and post independence, but we dialogued and settled all the issues and we are one. You will recall that the NPRC was actually established a long time ago and it was chaired by the late former Speaker of Parliament Cyril Ndebele.

"However, after he passed on there was no chairperson so there is no way they could have conducted the hearings before a chairperson was appointed.

"We have since appointed a chairperson because it is a requirement at law that a chairperson of the commission must be a former judge or a renowned legal person," he said.

President Mnangagwa revealed that he has already engaged traditional leaders from Matabeleland on the matter.

According to Section 252 of the Constitution, the NPRC's functions are to ensure post-conflict justice, healing and reconciliation.