10 Jun 2018
Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) and Faith Based Organisations from Zimbabwe, Kenya, Burundi and Togo converged at Holiday Inn in Harare to reflect on the religious mandate of churches, strengthen capacity of churches and provide a platform for learning and best practice.
The National Association of Non-Governmental Organisations (NANGO) Programs Manager, Nomaqhawe Gwere presented on the cross-pollination model which entails reflection from the Church and Civil Society Forum (CCSF).
CCSF is a coalition of the church and civil society and has a desire to see a peaceful Zimbabwe. It was born after a realization that since independence the church has been active in peace building and conflict prevention and CSOs also were needed to share results and problems. It was formed in 2015 and it comprises 28 stakeholders. The approach was to work on behaviour and attitude change programmes, evidence-based lobby and advocacy and conflict prevention, management, resolution skills development to bridge capacity gaps in peace building.
The overall objectives of the forum are training and building the capacity of traditional, religious, political, youth leaders to hold sustained dialogue, speak louder and more coordinated with regards to conflict prevention, research and documentation, evidence-based lobbying and against violence.
Gwere said, “CCSF has managed to advocate for a local and national level mechanism for violence prevention and promotion of community cohesion and has identified and strengthened local mechanisms for violence prevention. CSOs and FBOs have learnt that peace is not just a gift to be received but a task to be performed. In our diversity lies our strength of comparative power.”
On capacities critical for sustaining peace, reconciliation and understanding peacebuilding initiatives Bishop Ambrose Moyo, the Executive Director of Ecumenical Church Leaders Forum (ECLF), said churches need to seriously take social responsibility in social, economic and political issues.
He added that “There is need to design a peace-building programme that would heal the people to transform the mind and heart and change mind-sets. Transform hearts to the values of love, justice, peace, reconciliation, compassion to restore Ubuntu, and the need for an all-inclusive program. There is a need for reflection and Christians have to risk being misunderstood.”
ECLF is a peacebuilding forum and an initiative of church leaders.
In his conclusion, Bishop Moyo said that there is need to invest in peace by giving people peace, and peace brings development, a dialogue is necessary and it must be preceded with healing and the need to capacitate the community with skills to produce sustainable peace.
Thomas Kagwe Mbugua presented on lessons from Kenya. He pointed out that Kenya experienced 2007 post-election violence where there were human rights violations, deaths, and injuries. The Kenya National Dialogue and Reconciliation Commission was formed to stop violence, take measures to address the humanitarian crisis, to precede the formation of a power-sharing government to overcome political crisis and to come up with long-term solutions such as constitutional, institutional and legal reforms.
“The commission sought to identify constitutional, legislative and institutional reforms, make bold declarations and propose robust reparation in Kenya. Its weaknesses include making recommendations that did not follow from findings, some violations were more comprehensively investigated than others, the commission was unable to identify victims in many cases, the conduct of some Commissioners undermined the credibility of the report and there were no linkages to current reform processes”, said Mbugua.
Jean-Louis Nahimana presented on lessons from Burundi. He said Burundi has known a lot of tribal violence with great impact on the socio-political situation. There have been clashes that led to massacres in 1962,1965,1969,1971,1972,1982,1991 and 1993.The 1993 crisis resulted in the assassination of the president by the army and this caused a lot of hysteria and marked an increase in ethnic conflict.
“Burundi wanted to begin a Truth and Reconciliation Commission as a mechanism to consolidate peace. The church was to play an important role in peace building”, said Nahimana.
The commission in Burundi sees the importance of the church in peace building. In June 2006, the president met religious leaders and asked them to put in place the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, from this the church realized its role and put in place campaigns and initiatives. In 2007 the United Nations asked the government of Burundi to include four church leaders in the 12 men commission and it was officially recognized in 2008. In May 2008, a council of Inter religion was put in place and is composed of the National Council of churches in Burundi and it included Muslims and Catholic priests and it was meant to come up with strategies for peace. The church came up with strategies for dialogue and collaboration.
250 religious leaders are carrying out peace projects whose first phase is awareness programmes and the second is operational activities of the commission.
On lessons from Togo, Nicodeme Barrigah narrated that in 2006 a year after the death of a long-standing leader, all political actors met in Ouagadougou and put in place a Global Political Agreement, where there was a request for a commission.
Togo’s 2006 elections were violent and a commission was set up to investigate political issues from 1958-2005 and there could only be conditional amnesty.
Barrigah asserted that “The commission began work in 2009 and it was made up of church leaders and the members from CSOs, human rights defenders. It was mandated to investigate and bring an end to violence, propose transitional justice, compensation and a mechanism to avoid mistakes of the past (review the constitution, reform the constitution, reform within civil society. The strategy was to make investigations, report, and recommendations, public hearings, consultations and make a database of the 22 415 victims.”
Results include relative calm socio, political and economic, institutional reforms, compensation and rehabilitation of victims, report, constitution now has better protection, mediation, and facilitation of human rights, freedom of speech and 68 recommendations were made.
“The weaknesses are that there is still a lack of confidence, lack of funding, political blockage, selective recommendations and blockage in parliament. The commission was created to bring peace and now it’s in the reconciliation phase”, he added.
He said that lessons learnt include that TRC is one of the steps of a process and added that sometimes a nation can be misled to think that the TRC will solve all their problems. There is need for a phase of preparation for the commission to operate effectively and there is no need for violations of human rights. He said that the TRC process cannot be a success and desired results are not achieved if perpetrators do not cooperate fully and without political will.
The meeting was meant to support the peace and reconciliation process in Zimbabwe and Africa using the agency of the church. The church is neutral and has moral integrity and it goes beyond the law.
