adminCommisoner Geoffrey Chada
THE mandate of the National Peace and Reconciliation Commission (NPRC) is broad and is, in fact, the broadest of all the Chapter 12 independent commissions.
It is actually divided into three areas: to deal with the past, with the present, and with future conflicts.
This mandate is embodied through the functions which were constitutionally designed for us. These are: to ensure post-conflict justice, healing and reconciliation; to develop and implement programmes to promote national healing and cohesion; to bring about national reconciliation by encouraging people to tell the truth about the past and facilitating the making of our laws and provision of justice.
Furthermore, our mandate is to develop procedures and institutions at national level to facilitate dialogue among both political parties and communities.
The commission is also there to develop programmes to ensure that persons subjected to persecution, torture and other forms of abuse receive rehabilitation, treatment and support.
The commission also receives and considers complaints from the public, develop mechanisms for early detection of areas of potential conflicts and anything incidental that threatens the peace that we have.
In short, we are the sahwira (all-weather friend) of Zimbabwe.
Independence and gender balance
The independence of the commission was constitutionally conferred upon it by the constitution.
We are probably the first institution which has observed the 50/50 (gender) balance.
We have four female commissioners and four male commissioners, while the chairperson of the commission is an appointee of the President.
NPRC’s recent outreach programme
One of the things that we became quite aware of was of people who were claiming that they do not know about our commission, its functions and how to approach us.
So we came up with an outreach programme to all 10 provinces to promote meaningful engagement with the citizens and also raise awareness of the commission’s work.
Also, the outreach programme was was meant to boost public confidence in our mandate.
Our message was that: “You are our customers; we want you to understand us and we also want to understand you”.
We went to the provinces to share and make people aware of the mechanisms and approaches that we use when we are promoting peace and how we handle issues of national healing and reconciliation.
So within those 21 days, we were busy, province by province, explaining these things.
We gathered as many people, as many stakeholders as possible to explain our duties.
We also went out there to roll out our strategic plan, the five-year strategic plan.
Launch of provincial peace committees
The launch of the provincial peace committees was actually what we promised the people during the outreach.
After the provincial peace committees, we are going to establish district peace committees, ward committees, village committees and finally a national committee comprising delegates or representatives from the ten provinces.
The idea of the provincial peace committees is to promote peace within the province and facilitate dialogue.
This is a dialogue infrastructure.
There is no issue at provincial level which is going to be secret, anyone can bring any issue to be discussed by the province.
We are establishing the provincial peace committees to get down to the people so that they can give us ideas and facilitate peace and the chances of dialogue.
Another objective is to engage in confidence and trust building activities between groups and communities within the province.
We also want to promote tolerance building, provide strategic advice and early warnings on potential threats to the peace and stability of those particular communities.
Additionally, our objective is to respond to the issues identified within the province and emanating from the work of the district peace committees, which we will be able to establish at a later stage.
Moreover, we want to carry out any other activity necessary for the prevention of violence and promotion of peace within the provinces.
The provincial peace committee will be chaired by the commissioner that has been made responsible for that province.
They will be deputised by someone who will be chosen by all the 30 members, but the composition of the provincial peace committee will be like this: the Minister of State of that province or his or her delegate/designate, the officer commanding police in the province, the provincial administrator, representatives from relevant Government departments, (and) representatives from the traditional leaders, and) the chiefs in that province.
There is also going to be representatives from the church and faith-based organisations, two representatives from the civil society, two representatives from the business community, two representatives from the academia and two representatives from the political parties in Parliament.
Additionally, there will be two representatives from each of the political parties, two representatives from the youth, two representatives from women’s organisations, two representatives from people with disabilities, two representatives from war veterans, (and) two representatives from each of the districts from that province.
Last but not least, there will be two representatives from the media, one from the private media and another from the public media.
Legality of peace committees
Section 21, sub paragraph 8, of the NPRC Act states that the commission can set up committees that will be able to do the work of the commission from wherever they are.
For instance, for the provincial peace committee, we have already established these in three provinces.
Whatever is going to be decided for by the provincial peace committee is as legal and is as binding as anything that the commission will be doing.
Peace is the foundation of the eloquent; without peace there can never be any development.
Peace can bring us together to dialogue, to finding solutions to our problems.
Dialogue is the art of thinking together to solve problems.
We cannot dialogue unless we have peace.
Peace guarantees free political participation in public affairs and development.
If you are denied peace, you are denied a human right, and it is your right.
Peace is your right.
* Commissioner Geoffrey Chada was speaking to The Sunday Mail Chief Reporter Kuda Bwititi. NPRC is currently on a countrywide outreach programme.
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