Womens Day event set to foster peaceful co-existence |
| Published: 18/03/2009 |
Zimbabweans will on Friday hold a belated commemoration of International Women’s Day (IWD) at a gathering set to bring together women from different political parties to promote unity and harmony, a top government official said on Thursday. “We are organising a national event where we will invite all women from all political parties to commemorate the International Women’s Day on March 20,“ said Deputy Minister of Women’s Affairs, Gender and Community Development Evelyn Masaiti in Harare yesterday. Speaking at an event organised by the Zimbabwe Lawyers For Human Rights (ZHLR) and the Zimbabwe Young Women’s Network for Peace Building to mark IWD in the high-density suburb of Mbare, Masaiti said her ministry was preparing for an event on Friday where supporters of different political parties would be invited to attend. The organisers will allow the women to attend the event at the City Sports Centre fully dressed in the regalia of their different political parties to promote tolerance and togetherness in a country deeply divided along political lines. “We want all the women in Zimbabwe to come to this event in their different party regalia as a way of fostering peaceful co-existence despite coming from different political parties,” said Masaiti. “We even want those in religion, the judiciary, academia or any other profession to come in their professional regalia.“ A major day of global celebration for the economic, political and social achievements of women IWD is celebrated on March 8 every year. Friday’s event will mark the first real attempt by Zimbabwe’s new unity government at bringing together people from different political parties at a national event to promote peace and harmony in the country following violent elections last year. Human rights groups, churches and the country’s political leadership have said that Zimbabwe needs national healing to promote peace and harmony after a decade of gross human rights abuses and politically motivated violence left the country deeply scarred and polarised. Politically motivated violence and murder have accompanied elections in Zimbabwe since the 1999 emergence of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) as the first real threat to President Robert Mugabe and his ZANU PF party’s decades-long hold on power. The country witnessed some of the worst political violence and torture after a March parliamentary election last year that was won by the MDC while the party’s leader Morgan Tsvangirai defeated Mugabe in a parallel presidential poll but with fewer votes to avoid a second run-off ballot. In a bid to ensure Mugabe regained the upper hand in the second round vote, ZANU PF militia, war veterans and state security agents unleashed an orgy of violence and terror across the country, especially in rural areas many of which virtually became no-go areas for the opposition. Tsvangirai later withdrew from the June 27 run-off election because of violence that left about 200 of his supporters dead, leaving Mugabe to win uncontested in a ballot that African observers denounced as a shame and Western governments refused to recognise. A power sharing agreement was signed on September 15 to stop the bloodshed, leading to the formation of an inclusive government last month and a committee of senior ministers set up to begin the process of national healing and reconciliation. Incidents of political violence have also resurfaced in some rural areas of the country such as Buhera, Prime Minister Tsvangirai’s home area where houses were torched last week despite recent calls for an end to violence by both Mugabe and Tsvangirai. |
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