MDC – “Next item on the agenda – Robert we’re asking you to attend a hearing for you to publicly admit your crimes against humanity, OK?”
ROBERT – “Okey dokey, Morgy, and lets pencil in Perence for the following tuesday”
or -
ROBERT – “Never, never, never!”

Consider Mugabe’s whole make-up – is he likely to trust anyone, and would he be confident that any hearing would guarantee him a pardon and immunity. We have a bunch of thugs in the JOC – don’t expect them to act like gentlemen and do the honourable thing.

Who in the justice system in Zimbabwe is capable and reliable to deliver justice impartially, and who could possibly chair a TRC – Mbeki?

Dealing with a few policemen, the odd war vet and green bomber would be the easy part, but I don’t see how they’ll get the co-operation of ALL those who share the power and governance.

If the truth be known it’s probably the very threat of having a TRC or something similar that’s at the back of Mugabe’s and the JOC’s thinking that determines the line of argument when it comes to talks about power sharing.

The TRC was empowered to call before it all those (eg white policemen, senior apartheid politicians) accused of serious crimes against the people. The aim of the TRC was to bring the truth into the open, to give the victims or their families a chance to speak, and to get the perpetrators to fully disclose their past evil deeds in public.

The clever part was the TRC had the legal power to pardon only those it felt had told the full and whole truth – thus the only way for the accused to avoid prosecution for their past crimes against humanity was to give a full and frank disclosure of their actions, and to request a pardon.

For Zimbabweans to move on from the horrors of the Mugabe era, we too need a similar Truth & Reconciliation Commission.

Can anyone suggest how MDC can push for a trial for humanitarian crimes against ZANU when signed up to a power share deal? It’ll take a miracle of legal juggling.

It is important to get the details right.

However, that will not change the big picture. It is known that well over 100 people died, nearly all of them MDC supporters or activists, or their family members.

I am wondering what, in future, can be done with Heroes Acre. It’s been desecrated by some recent additions and perhaps wasn’t such a great idea in the first place.

I’d love there to be a better and more honouring memorial to those who made the ultimate sacrifice, including those who died for democratic principles after Independence.

Sally D

I hope it makes its way onto the negotiating table and perhaps Zanu PF can identify which of these names were their people murdered by MDC? None? Then please, Mugabe, supply your own list.You did make such claims, after all.

Botswana and Zambia are proving to be true friends of Zimbabwe, and will hopefully bring some pressure at SADC this w/e.

I mourn and in deed my heart bleeds for the lives lost. These people must be declared national heroes and heroins, I say again, national heroes and heroins. Mugabe and his cronies deserve no amnesty. Every one of them must be answerable for the atrocities they caused. Giving them amnesty is like saying all these lives lost are of no value to Zimbabwe. We want accountability in Zimbabwe and justice for all. That’s why we went to war to win this country.

Pasi naMugabe, pasi nemhondi, pasi nemadzakutsaku aMugabe. Long live a free Zimbabwe.

May they rest in peace and rise in glory, and may light eternal shine on them.

The truth is not for them, for they see Reality face to face. It is for us, the living, to seek and tell the truth of what happened to them, so that they may be honoured and their sorrowing families comforted.

Sally D

A memorial honouring them and those who died in Gukurahundi and in the 2000, 2002, 2005 elections should be built outside parliament when parliament is democratic and free of the scourge of mugabe’s and zanu’s tyranny. There are now so many names, perhaps it will need the whole of ‘Unity’ Square which will have to be renamed Memorial Square, lest we should ever forget and allow such atrocities again.

What conspiracy theory cuold there be if all the names on the list are verified an bonafide dead

Furthermore they are effectively all ardent supporters of the MDC

I suppose Zanu PF thought these would be re-incarnated into new life again post Zanu pF so it wasn’t much loss

BUT we know that the dead know nothing, they return to the dust and neither do they go to heaven or any purjutory…in other these words lifes are lost…dead

Lost to the infinate possibilities of life…lost to relatives…lost to a people of Zimbabwe…lost ot a nation…lost to a world

A world that will never know what here lies a teacher to guide a hundred of children…a fireperson to save lives…a farmer to feed a nation, a doctor, an accountant, a driver, a leader

Zanu PF must know it is only in this context that they can understand the will of the MDC to “PROTECT THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE”

African leaders must remember that just as they where little children, young boys and young man before they where anything walking the sands of mother’s Africa…that they too could have never been AS THESE ARE NEVER MORE TILL ARMEGGEDON