6.2 Questionnaire results
6.2.2 Need for reconciliation and healing
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framework in Chapter Three which notes that actors should provide all humanitarian aid to victims. Hallencreutz (1998) established that the church had met the humanitarian needs of the returning refugees from Mozambique and Botswana by offering Epworth commercial mission farm to be their settlement. In Banana (1991) and Muchena (2014), it has been discovered that the church had provided education in mission schools as well as the health centres. From the findings of ZCBC, EFZ and ZCC (2006), the church ensured the handling of matters of refugees such as poverty, education and health. In addition, general comments in Chapter Five confirmed that humanitarian needs were met through church arms such as Christian Social Responsibility Committee and later by MeDRA in partnership with ZCC (R35, R99 and R44) Districts, circuits and societies became channels of humanitarian aid. Most hurt victims got medical attention from the church clinics though there were few centres.
There was agreement that the church contributed to the following three items: schools were established without any form of discrimination, health service centres were instituted and vocational training centres were established. Findings by Banana (1991) established that the church also had other strategies for leadership development. This was through theological training for both the clergy and lay-people at UTC, vocational training centres, mission schools for primary and secondary education and health centres which also encompassed employment creation.
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through banning African political parties, unwarranted arrests, victimisation of supporters, destruction of infrastructure, sexual abuse, land grabbing, murder and atrocities.
Findings in Dube (2006), Matikiti (2014) and Murambadoro (2015) confirmed that during the Gukurahundi era, ZANU and the government through military (5th Brigade) were perpetrators of political violence while the victims were ZIPRA and its supporters in Matabeleland and Midlands provinces where around 20 000 lives were lost. Victims suffered from trauma due to loss of relatives who were murdered, imposition of curfews, lack of access to medical care and food, beatings and torture, shallow graves for the murdered, rape, injury and destruction of properties. Findings of Haider (2010) describe how political conflict and violence necessitated a socio-economic crunch from 2000-2008 leading to scarcity of humanitarian needs which affected the majority of the citizens. There was an urgent need for psychological, emotional, spiritual redressing for the victims especially vulnerable groups of children and women who were sexually abused.
In Matikiti (2014), from 2000 to 2008 elections MDC supporters and white commercial farmers were victims of political violence perpetrated by the army, war veterans, central intelligence, police and youth militia. Because of this, Hororo (2015) confirmed that terrorism was everywhere pervaded by various government perpetrators who used state propaganda, murder, arson, torture, sexual abuse, land and property grabbing that benefitted ZANU-PF chiefs and party supporters, security chiefs and civil servants. Around 4 500 white commercial farmers lost their fortunes and over 70 000-2.4 million people became stranded without shelter, food, health access, sanitation and education for children during the Murambatsvina operation.
Hence reconciliation and healing was needed even before independence between whites and blacks, blacks and blacks, Shona and Ndebele ethnic groups. Machinga (2012) reported that in Manicaland province, the political violence of 2000, 2005 and 2008 led to 4 343 victims, who were sexually abused, murdered, abducted, tortured, displaced or lost property. Thus, the needs of almost 5 550 grassroots survivors were met by ZCA and other Christian organisations. There were programmes for community dialogue meetings for healing memories and responding to emotional, spiritual, physical and sociological needs.
Findings from Haider (2010) confirmed that socio-economic structures were negatively affected, creating a scarcity of humanitarian needs such as food, shelter, water and poor service delivery. Because of this, redressing of psychological, emotional, and spiritual challenges was
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desperately needed for vulnerable groups of women and children in particular. The Herald (21 August 2010) confirmed that the church’s role in promoting peace, tolerance, unity and participation in constitution making process was of paramount importance as it was addressing the colonially inherited ideologies that were not favorable for the nation’s development. In Chitando and Manyoganise (2011) claimed the need for humanitarian aid was critical after the effects of Murambatsvina in 2005-2008. Bloomfield et al. (2003) confirm that Zimbabwean crises needed a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, such as the one in South Africa, to deal with all violations of human rights. According to the findings from Eppel (2004), conflict transformation required restorative measures such as reburial for mass graves, an implementation of local justice like for Rwanda, rebuilding of destroyed homes, psychological rehabilitation, cleansing ceremonies and memorialisation as in Sierra Leone. Denis (2011) and Staub (2006) confirmed that efforts were needed for reconciliation and healing such as in South Africa and Rwanda.
All have agreed that MCZ intervention reached out to national political leaders. Empirical evidence for reaching out to political figures is confirmed in research by Dodo et al. (2014) that through intermediaries, the church leaders mediated peace agreements. Also the ZCBC, EFZ and ZCC (2006) established that the church engaged political parties in dialogue as the Ecumenical for Religious Bodies (ERB) presented a document to the government claiming that the nation lacked shared national vision, political tolerance, a home-grown democratic constitution, better economic policies, accountability and proper forms of land redistribution, hence suffered from international isolation. The Herald (2008) confirmed that church engaged with national political figures for peace negotiations. Approaches to peace-building as described in Chapter Three (theoretical framework) stress that the top leadership military/
political/ religious leaders must be seen engaging each other. Government legislative reforms are enabled by negotiations to stop violence and calls for democracy.
Hallencreutz (1998) established that the MCZ conference of 1998 urged forgiveness of RF and proposed transitional government to accommodate the British government and the PF for unity in government which was endorsed in 1979 at the Lancaster House peace talks. As a result, in 1980 there was Zimbabwean independence from white minority rule. The MCZ was seen collaborating with ERBs and HOCD, engaging with national political leadership as evidenced by findings Muchena (2004) who claimed that in 1995 and 1996, ERB wrote pastoral letters to the government to restore the rule of law, respect court orders and rebuilding the economy
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while in 2003, HOCD engaged Tsvangirayi and Mugabe for MDC and ZANU-PF respectively, to initiate reconciliation, but Mugabe turned this down. They also engaged with SADC political leaders, local churches and ordinary church members for peace-building. The Herald (2008) and 19 November 2009) confirmed that churches engaged and pressured ZANU PF, MDC-T and MDC-M to form an inclusive government which gave birth to the Government of National Unity in September 2008. The Ecumenical Religious Bodies further engaged the government to resolve constitutional challenges embracing labour, private sectors, media and national institutions. The Standard of Zimbabwe (28 September – 4 October 2008) reported that the churches and human rights advocacy proposed transitional justice like in South Africa and throughout the country, the structures to run reconciliation and healing processes were prepared.
Respondents agreed that peace-building initiatives reached out to grassroots level. The Daily News (22 June 2003) confirmed that the church had targeted all levels of society including politicians, church leaders, civic society and grassroots at large for peace-building initiatives.
Dodo et al. (2014) established that the Roman Catholic Church and other Christian denominations ran awareness programmes in civic education, training of human rights and other basic social and political matters. Findings from Machinga (2012) showed that church organisations reached out to grassroots and assisted around 5 550 survivors through community healing dialogue meetings and healing memories.
As reported in The Daily News (22 June 2003) and by Chitando (2013), national prayer rallies were held at public and private gatherings based on peace, justice, unity, reconciliation, healing and forgiveness and were attended by people from all levels of society. The theoretical framework used in this study proposes that peace-building at grassroots level is essential and should involve training, reducing prejudice as well as offering psychosocial support in cases of postwar trauma. Working at the grassroots level can be seen as a participatory bottom-up approach which is good for strengthening capacities of societies to peacefully resolve disputes, develop trust, safety and social cohesion within and between communities while promoting inter-ethnic and inter-group dialogue.
It was generally agreed that survivors need psychotherapy for post-traumatic stress disorder.
Research by Staub (2006) discovered that victims suffering from PTSD feel vulnerable as they lose trust in society and even perpetrators who participated in mass killings are traumatised and
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need psychological therapy. NANGO (2012) confirmed that the church and civil society organisations worked with trauma counselling to bring about psychological healing. The need for psychotherapy for PTSD is discussed in this study’s framework in Chapter Three.
Counselling is for resolving conflict based on restoring love and unity between enemies. As established by Weaver et al. (2003), PTSD requires special attention which may be provided by clergy and the religious community to heal the traumatic experience.
Healthy social relationships are important. Although these relationships had been addressed to some extent, Sachinyoka (2004) claimed that there was little justice or compensation in either the white or black community over land disputes. Bloomfield et al. (2003) confirmed that the struggle between ethnic groups (Ndebele and Shona) since the mid-nineteenth century were never adequately resolved to top-down approaches to peace-building initiatives.
Physical healing was another important element. Machinga (2012) established that healing involves diversified areas such as healing of memories, emotional, spiritual, physical and social. In terms of physical healing, Banana (1991) reported that health centres were opened for the affected though only very few. Data in Chapter Five confirms that the church offered free medical attention from its clinics for those who had been physically hurt.
6.2.3 Civil society organisations that worked together with MCZ in peace-building