NPRC reduced to a lobby group fails to put closure on human rights violations

The National Peace and Reconciliation Commission has been reduced to a mere lobby group as some people within the Junta led government continue to meddle in the business of the Commission that is meant to put closure to the human rights violations and genocide perpetrated by the Government in the late 1980s when the Korean trained Fifth Brigade massacred more than twenty thousand people in an act of ethnic cleansing targeting mainly Ndebele speaking people  in the Midlands and Matabeleland Provinces.

There are general feelings amongst the people of Matabeleland that the commission has been dragging its feet and was not cascading the idea of peace to the affected people and its approach has also been too elitist as it was not encompassing ordinary people.

The Commission which has been grandstanding and gathering views far away from the affected people has come under fire for wasting resources, amid fears that there were people in the Junta government who did not want to see closure to issues surrounding Gukurahundi, the Chiadzwa Issue where the military killed civilians in the diamond fields as well as the destruction of people's properties during the 1990s Murambatsvinawhere hundreds of thousands of innocent people were killed and had their properties destroyed again by the military.

Some members of the commission have openly declared their allegiance to the ruling Zanu-PF government putting fears amongst the affected people on whether they will carry their duties on a nonpartisan basis as required by the Commission.

"We have some commissioners who openly chant ruling party slogans before the meetings, and one wonders how they will be able to represent the affected people who have been victim to the same political party," said Tamsanqa Moyo of Ibesthu La Mahlabezulu, a political Pressure Group in Bulawayo.


"We feel this is a useless Commission until there is closure to some of these issues and reparations paid to the affected victims and families especially thoseaffected during Gukurahundi we believe the Commission is doing nothing," said Mutshumayeli Moyo whose lost both parents during the genocide in Tsholotsho in Matabeleland North Province.

He added that they have not seen the Commissioners in their village only to hear that they were in cities consulting the wrong people who were not the victims. The NPRC was formed under the Section 2.5 of the Zimbabwe Constitution and has been on a nation wide whirlwind barking at the wrong trees.

In each of their meetings especially in Matabeleland the Commission was met with protests from lobby, pressure and political groups over their inept pace in dealing with human rights violations.

A Commissioner with NPRC Mr Leslie Ncube  admitted on state radio Classic 263 that the Commission was facing resource challenges.

"We have our own fair share of challenges, we would like to put up offices near the affected people so that we are accessible but we have resource challenges like every other organization in the country," he said.

The NPRC has been mandated by president EmmersonMnangagwa to try and douse the roaring flames around Gukurahundi as well as look at other human rights violations in different provinces, but political analysts say the Commission has been deliberately deprived of resources by the government as there were people who did not want to see these issues closed as they feared prosecution at international courts since they were guilt of the crimes.

Some members in the military are still serving, while some have retired or died, it feared a small clique of perpetrators is the ones who are frustrating the Commission's work therefore reducing it to a lobby group.

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Makho Precious, I write my personal opinions as a free spirit standing for human rights and space in society