Thursday, June 12, 2008

CALL FOR ALL POLITICAL PARTIES YOUTH CONFERENCE TO END VIOLENCE

CALL FOR ALL POLITICAL PARTIES YOUTH CONFERENCE TO END VIOLENCE

By Sihle Nyathi

There have been numerous reports of people in Zimbabwe who have been murdered, maimed in spates of political violence, but there is the important constituency of youths who have not been factored into the equation. Youths have been used as perpetrators of political violence and in a lot of cases they have been victims of violence. Nothing has been done to promulgate strategies to deal with the role of youths in the violence and possibly curbing their role.

It is in light of this, that youths in Zimbabwe have declared that they are tired of being used as conduits of violence by political parties as this creates a bleak future for them. The youths also called for a National Conference which would be attended by youths from the different political parties. The youths during this conference would discuss their common aspirations and the conference would also be a tolerance building measure for diverse political views. This came out at a focus group meeting that was convened by the National Youth Development Trust.

Youths from the two main political parties said that there are more things that unite youths than those that separate them and there is need to cooperate.

“Youths in Zimbabwe need to be united as they share a common future. They should also be actively involved in creating a brighter future,” said Trevor Murayi.

A lecturer at the National University of Zimbabwe, Mr Gibbs Dube who presented a paper on whether youths are being adequately prepared for the Presidential runoff scheduled for June 27 called upon the youths to organize a national conference which would be used as a method of ending the conflict between youths of different political parties.

The argument that was presented by Sihle Nyathi, the Information and Advocacy Officer of Habakkuk Trust was that it is the role of non-state actors such as civic society to build peace between youths of different political parties given that they are not involved in the conflict.

This is because the different political parties might not be interested in building tolerance among the youths for fear that they would derail the constituency from their agenda. The role of the National Youth Conference would not be to create hegemony of ideas but to chart a new dispensation in the political arena where there is only a fight of ideas and not a physical battle.

In his paper, Mr Dube noted that public media such as the radio station Spot FM has presented youths as being violent or as victims of violence. He noted that there is need to end the stereotypical view of the youths.

A youth leader from Zanu-PF complained about coverage that they received from independent publications.

“The story was disheartening in that the story was completely false and I got calls from the United Kingdom where I was accused of beating someone that I was having dinner with. The other problem is that youths are able to talk to each other when they are sober but the problems comes up when politicians give youths beer and youths become unreasonable,” said the Zanu-PF youth leader.

The youths were advised to come up with their own media given that citizen journalism has become phenomenal. The danger with citizen media is that there are many falsehoods that are peddled. The youths are set to take a short course in story writing so that they can have their own media which can be as simple as one page documents.

The Zimbabwean media was said to have failed to represent the interests of the youths in that they are not giving youths a voice in their stories and they are not mobilizing the youths to take part in electoral processes. The media has reportedly become obsessed with political interests and forget the important political constituency comprising of youths. Youths constitute a sizeable number of the Zimbabwean population and they are the most vulnerable in that they are used for political violence. The media has to mainstream youths in their coverage as they represent the future of the country.

There were also calls for conflict resolution in relation to the youths and for political tolerance. Zimbabwe is facing conflict at this time and in a post conflict era, communities will need to have programmes that are specifically targeted at conflict resolution given that communities have been divided in terms of their political parties. A case in point is that of Regina Ndlovu, a resident of Robert Sinyoka just outside Bulawayo who lost her property during a spate of political violence in 2002.

The sad part is that it is some members of her community who were supporting a particular party who sold her out. After all is said and done, the community would have to live together. In a post crisis phase, the community would have to focus on development and it would be difficult given that there are a number of wounds that would have to be healed. Victims of violence also have to be healed incase they want retributive justice. Victims of Gukurahundi also come to mind because a lot of them will demand retributive justice. In the event that there is no monetary compensation victims of political violence might also take up arms.

There are communities who have managed to survive the conflict currently facing Zimbabwe and communities that come to mind include the Phakamani Community in Matabeleland South who used preemptive strategies to diffuse a potentially volatile situation. The community was able to preserve its peace because there is community cohesion. The Phakamani community is a model that other communities can draw lessons from and possibly help civic groups in coming up with methods of community cohesion as a measure of peace building.

There have been calls for panels such as the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission in a new Zimbabwe but there is need to have healing processes that are specifically targeted at communities and will not be agents of documenting and researching on what has happened in conflict phases but will be healing processes. The xenophobic attacks in South Africa bear testimony to a people who have not been healed of the ravages of Apartheid.

The writer of the article, Sihle Nyathi is the Habakkuk Trust Information and Advocacy Officer and she is the editor of the Habakkuk Trust Blog and the Newsletter.

End.

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

HABAKKUK TRUST ACTION TEAM LOBBIES FOR VOTING RIGHTS

By Fortune Dlamini

THE community in Robert Sinyoka, an area about 20km out of Bulawayo city centre has come up with a committee that will lobby for the voting rights of people in the area who do not have Zimbabwean citizenship.

Most of these people come from places such as Zambia and Mozambique, but they have been living in Zimbabwe for the past 20 or more years. Some of them are born in Zimbabwe, but are still denied citizenship, hence they cannot take part in any electoral process.

A team from Habakkuk Trust visited the area as part of its programmes, in a bid to engage the community to take maximum participation in the June 27 elections.

The Headmaster of Robert Sinyoka Primary School, Mr Giyani Moyo, who is also the Secretary for the Habakkuk Trust Robert Sinyoka Area Action Team (A-Team), said the issue was a cause for concern as these people were being denied their rights.

“There are quite a number of these people in our area, which constitutes of Robert Sinyoka, St Peters, Methodist and Pumula North who are not able to vote as they do not have citizenship. Most of these have been in Zimbabwe for all their lives, but they have been denied the right to register in the current elections,” he said.
“These people are part of us and they also have the right to take part in electoral processes,” added Mr Moyo.

However, of interest is that most of these people voted in the 1980 elections. The community is concerned that this is a Human Rights abuse.

“It may be too late for us to lobby for these people for them to vote in the current elections, but we should begin lobbying for them now for future purposes. We will make sure that we capture and compile the statistics of these people so that we know how many people we are dealing with,” he said.
He said they will come up with a committee that will be solely responsible for lobbying and consulting relevant authorities.

This decision comes after Local Level Advocacy Programmes that were carried out in the area by Habakkuk Trust. These programmes enlightened the communities of their basic rights and how they can fully participate in national issues. These programmes also saw one of the Action Team members contesting as a Member of Parliament in the Pumula North constituency.

BULAWAYO CIVIC ORGANISATIONS HOLD CONSULTATIVE MEETINGS

By Fortune Dlamini

Civic organizations, churches and other stakeholders should identify ways in which they can take part in mapping the way forward and have clear objectives and agendas if they are to ensure maximum participation of the electorate in the June 27 elections and its aftermath, said Pastor Useni Sibanda.

Pastor Sibanda said this at a Civic Organizations Consultative Meeting that was held in Bulawayo on Saturday 31 May 2008, which was attended by various civic groups, representatives of churches and the media.

Mr Gorden Moyo, Executive Director of Bulawayo Agenda said civic society should know various international dynamics that are diverting the people’s attention from achieving its objectives.

“There are international obstacles that are affecting the country, which we need to be aware of. China, for example has been pampering Zanu-PF with money and campaign material such as agriculture equipment and computers. We need to expose the hypocrisy of China and play the name and shame game,” he said.

Mr Moyo said there were also some regional obstacles such as the SADC, which was failing to take a solid position on the Zimbabwe situation. He pointed out that SADC has a clause that prohibits its member states from interfering in the internal affairs African states. He stated that the clause is being used by SADC to stop help from coming to Zimbabwe.

There was also a recommendation that elections should not be ward based as there are thousands of Zimbabweans who have been displaced. There was a recommendation that Zimbabwe Electoral Commission compose a list of all the displaced people and set up centers where these people can vote from. This is important as most of the people who were displaced during the political are afraid to go back to their wards to vote.

Voter education was one of the most important issues that was raised and it was resolved that all stakeholders should be in the fore-front of encouraging the electorate to go and vote in the 27 June Presidential elections. All stakeholders were encouraged to go into their respective constituencies and areas and tell people to go and vote.

The stakeholders also recommended and resolved that they come up with a position paper for the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission to announce the results after a stipulated time frame. This position paper will be compiled and sent to the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission as a stance, which has been taken by all the stakeholders who were present at the consultative meeting.