'Graft hindering justice delivery'

NATIONAL Transitional Justice Working Group (NTJWG) deputy chairperson Paul Themba Nyathi has said government should understand that corruption is the main hindrance to the nation's achievement of freedom and justice.

Nyathi made the remarks on the sidelines of a strategic conference held by NTJWG in Harare on Friday last week.

"The government has to understand that corruption is the major impediment to the achievement of freedom because corruption has a tendency of corrupting society right across the board," Nyathi said.

"Corruption affects the provision of justice in the sense that if you corrupt a police force, if you corrupt a judiciary or national prosecutors, it makes it easy for them to access resources which means the country cannot move forward. Corruption, therefore, is at the centre of government's inability to deliver the services that they are supposed to deliver."

He added: "The corruption that is rampant right now, is all because we have not dealt with our past which gave birth to some of these corrupt tendencies, which as a group we are continuously trying to solve."

The conference also saw the launch of NTJWG's 2019-2023 strategic plan, an ambitious step towards accelerating implementation of transitional justice in line with the recently adopted African Union Transitional Justice Policy.

Zimbabwe has in the past few months witnessed an increase in human rights violations at a time citizens anticipated President Emmerson Mnangagwa's administration to end the violations that led to the country's isolation by the international community for close to two decades.

A report by the Zimbabwe Human Rights Forum released last week shows that cases of human rights violations were on the rise, and often resulting in fatalities as witnessed in the August 1, 2018 post-election shootings, including the January fuel demonstrations where 23 people lost their lives.

"Following all the horrible incidences that have happened in this country, there should be truth telling; there should be reparations of one form or another; there should be the application of justice in whatever stance and there should be the democratisation of society, which as a group we are advocating for," Nyathi said.

"We have a past as a country. We have not, as a people, dealt with the past; the past of violence and injustices. We are in a state where the past has caught up with us. We have witnessed violent episodes, one after another. As a result, our development has become slow. We witness untold poverty; we witness abuses of power; institutions that don't serve the interests of the people and failure by those in power to be accountable. So, we seek to address issues of what the past held and what the future should hold."

Zimbabwe has a long history of conflicts, including the 1980s Gukurahundi genocide. There has also not been closure to many past violations.

One of the survivors of the 2008 post-election violations, Weston Katiyo, said after being beaten up and had his leg fractured, he is yet to receive compensation after he launched a complaint at the courts 10 years ago.

"I suffered a traumatic experience in 2008, where I almost lost my leg. I put my case before the High Court years back and the men who almost killed me fled. I haven't received any compensation since then," he said.

Katiyo added: "For a while, I have been living in fear, but being a member of this group has made me comfortable to talk about my story and try to make sure that justice is served to the people who damaged my leg."