“There would be no transitional justice without prosecutions and reparations”

Bulawayo - Two leading regional human rights activists have said Zimbabwe is day dreaming of transitional justice if there are no prosecutions of perpetrators of human rights violations and reparations for the victims.
Addressing over 500 people at the Ideas Festival public lecture at a local hotel Kenyan lawyer and human rights activist, John Ngaii Gikonyo, said, as they had learnt over years in Kenya, there can never be transitional justice (TJ) outside prosecutions and reparations.
“The primary objective of TJ is to end a culture of impunity because impunity is the fertilizer of genocide. You must confront the past, you must audit the state and you must rid the country of the ghost of the past,” he said.
In the aftermath of the December 2007 elections violence broke out in Kenya between the supporters of rivals Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga killing 1 200 and displacing 6 000.
After the disputed December 30 results, protests degenerated into widespread violence as decades of economic frustration and ethnic rivalry spiraled out of control.
The United Nations (UN) warned that a repeat of the problems could occur after next year’s presidential election unless institutions are strengthened and the perpetrators of the 2007 violence are punished.
On 15 December 2010, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Luis Moreno Ocampo, requested the ICC to issue summonses ordering six prominent Kenyan citizens that included senior officials of the three arms of the police and members of the government - to appear before it to face justice for grave human rights violations in the post-election period.
Gikonyo said it was important that certain individuals be prosecuted so that neighbours could trust each other again.
“Unless there is prosecution of certain individuals, there will always be a feeling that this was committed by such and such a tribe,” he said.
Lloyd Kuveya, a former magistrate and now legal practitioner with the Southern African Litigation Centre, said the African Union (AU) was developing a mechanism for transitional justice in African countries.
“Sadly, Zimbabwe is not involved because of the squabbling in the inclusive government. The UN is waiting on the wings to help with transitional justice where there will be reparations and truth will be dealt with. If the country (Zimbabwe) does not confront issues of atrocities from the early 1980s to today, it will not be surprising if the international community intervenes,” he said.
Justice minister Patrick Chinamsa, however, on Monday last week, defended the country’s human rights record at the Human Rights Council's Universal Periodic Review in Geneva.
“Zimbabwe is a member of the international community and remains committed to its obligations on human rights. We adopted among others laws on the protection of children and orphans, laws against family violence and laws that ensure the rights of NGOs working in our country," he said.