Political activists pledge to promote peace through signing a peace pact

Youths from St. Mary’s suburb in Chitungwiza on Saturday the 24th of February 2018 signed a peace pact at a peace-building initiative jointly organized by the Centre for Conflict Management and Transformation (CCMT) and the Chitungwiza and Manyame Rural Residents Association (CAMERA). The platform was held at the Leisure Centre in Chitungwiza and was attended by more than 50 youths drawn from the Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (ZANU PF) district youth league and the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC-T) district youth assembly structures.

The purpose of this initiative was to promote peaceful community cohesion and tolerance between young political activists before, during and after elections. This is in recognition of the fact that Zimbabwe will be heading for harmonized elections in a few months time and the youths are regularly targeted as the instigators of politically-motivated violence in Chitungwiza.

The two political parties who were represented by their respective St. Mary’s district youth chairpersons, Virimai Zingunde (ZANU PF) and Constantine Tapera (MDC-T) committed to work together to promote peace and development in Chitungwiza through signing a peace pact.

The terms of the pact bind the parties signatory to it to:
 Desist from participating in any form of violence, especially politically motivated violence.
 Raise awareness in the communities on the need for peace and development.
 Encourage their party members to use nonviolent ways of addressing conflict.

The CCMT and CAMERA vowed to continue working with the youths from different political affiliations to facilitate peaceful co-existence and tolerance in the polarized communities which require some form of cooling down through peace-building, healing and reconciliation.