Zimbabwe Council of Churches president Kenneth Mtata said that part of the envisaged national dialogue should deal with the crimes committed in the past.
Mtata said this while during an interview with the Zimbabwe Independent. Asked if atrocities committed in the past be discussed as part of the national dialogue, Mtata said:
Actually, the national dialogue must mark those who committed crimes to be able to say that they are sorry about what happened.
It must enable those who were wronged to say “I forgive you”. It should create an environment that brings about closure. I know that sometimes there is tension between justice and peace.
But should we say to those who committed crimes “now we have the opportunity to put you all in prison”, or should we say “if you just confess what happened, you are going to walk scot-free”?
That is the reason why we need dialogue because it allows us to bring those issues to a closure which many people agree on and identify with.
At the moment we haven’t reached that point and that is why we cannot say we need to go the peace route or the justice route, what we need is dialogue.