Gukurahundi victims' families urged to use law to seek justice

Families of people who disappeared during the Gukurahundi atrocities should make greater use of existing legal mechanisms to obtain official recognition of their missing relatives and push authorities to investigate their disappearances, Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) lawyer Prisca Dube has said.

Dube said the continued absence of the remains of those who disappeared had denied families closure while leaving wives, mothers and children unable to fully access property, benefits and other entitlements belonging to their missing relatives.

She was speaking during commemorations of the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances, hosted by Ibhetshu Likazulu under the theme "Remembering the Disappeared: Truth Telling, Justice and Healing."

Dube noted that Zimbabwe has not ratified the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, which was adopted in 2006 and entered into force in 2010.

She said the convention was significant because it recognises both disappeared people and their families as victims.

"The International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance says no exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war, a threat of war, internal political instability or any other political emergency, may be invoked as a justification for enforced disappearance," Dube said.

She said recognising families as victims was crucial because the effects of enforced disappearance continued long after a person was taken.

Dube said women had carried much of the burden of uncertainty, particularly in cases connected to Gukurahundi, which claimed thousands of lives in Matabeleland and the Midlands during the 1980s.

Although many of those who disappeared were men, she said their wives, mothers and children were left facing decades of emotional and economic uncertainty.

"The disappeared has disappeared, what does the woman left behind say, does she mourn? Because for us, if we don't go to a grave site to bury someone, then you don't mourn," she said.

Dube said some families had spent more than four decades without being able to formally settle the affairs of their missing relatives.

She cited cases where houses, livestock and other assets remained registered in the names of men who disappeared in the 1980s, leaving their families in legal limbo.

"The house is under the husband's name. Their husbands were stolen from them, their brothers, their kids while still in their youths in the 80s and more than 40 years later, what has happened with their lives as they stopped at the enforced disappearance bus stop and they are still there," she said.

Dube urged affected families to begin using available legal mechanisms to establish the status of their missing relatives.

She said families could seek information about the whereabouts of disappeared relatives and approach the courts to compel investigations into what happened to them.

"For me as a lawyer, it then means of all these people that were disappeared, show us the body," she said.

She called for authorities to investigate the circumstances surrounding the disappearances and provide regular updates on the progress of those investigations.

"Can we start investigations to say who took him and put a duty on those who are meant to investigate to start investigating and say if they are investigating, can we engage lawyers and find a way to say they must report back to the court whether three or six months to show how far they have gone with their investigations," Dube said.

She also encouraged families to use the Missing Persons Act, which provides a legal mechanism for having a person officially declared missing.

According to Dube, applications can be made at the nearest magistrates' court. The process can involve notices being published in the Government Gazette and newspapers before the magistrate considers evidence from relatives, friends and associates confirming that the person has been missing.

She acknowledged, however, that the existing law places a considerable burden on families.

"The victims of the genocide have not used these laws, they are not perfect laws but they are there and all of us need to then utilise them so that the death certificate can come out saying declared missing by virtue of this law," she said.

Dube said official documentation could help surviving family members access benefits and deal with property and other legal matters.

She argued that greater use of the available legal mechanisms could also create a stronger basis for pursuing truth, accountability and justice for victims of Gukurahundi.

Dube further pointed to Section 50(7) of Zimbabwe's 2013 Constitution, saying it provides another legal basis for families seeking remedies in cases involving missing persons.

She said families had been reluctant to use existing laws partly because the legislation was developed in a different historical context, including cases involving people who left Zimbabwe for work and remained away for several years.

However, she said the legal framework could still be utilised by families of people who disappeared during Gukurahundi.

Dube said the continued failure to address the plight of families of the disappeared had prolonged their suffering and prevented many from achieving closure more than four decades after the atrocities.

She called for a more deliberate national conversation on the legal, social and economic consequences of enforced disappearances, particularly for the women and children left behind.