Bere
(DB)
made
the
observations
in
a
wide-ranging
interview
with
Alpha
Media
Holdings
chairman
Trevor
Ncube
(TN)
on
the
platform
In
Conversation
with
Trevor.
Below
are
excerpts
from
the
conversation.
TN:
Dzikamai
Bere.
Welcome
to
In
Conversation
With
Trevor.
DB:
Thank
you
for
having
me.
TN:
It
is
a
pleasure
having
you
here.
Tell
me,
am
I
right
in
assuming
that
now
that
the
elections
are
over
ZimRights
can
relax?
DB:
No.
No
way.
Trevor
you
may
have
been
following
a
lot
of
the
shenanigans
happening
with
our
elections,
but
what
has
become
very
clear
is
that
we
have
been
plunged
into
a
perpetual
state
of
elections.
So
there
is
no
time
to
relax.
TN:
What
does
that
mean
for
the
human
rights
situation?
Perpetual
atmosphere
of
election
campaigning.
What
does
that
mean
to
you?
DB:
Yeah,
so
a
lot
of
things
have
been
happening,
but
the
first
point
that
I
want
to
underline
is
that
elections
in
our
country
have
become
a
source
of
fear.
You
see,
elections
as
part
of
the
machinery
that
supports
democracy
are
supposed
to
bring
hope,
they
are
supposed
to
bring
good
news.
Hope
for
ordinary
people
to
participate,
but
the
tragedy
of
our
country
is
that
every
time
an
election
date
is
announced
there
is
fear
and
trepidation.
And
where
does
that
come
from?
It
comes
from
a
legacy
of
violence
because
over
a
number
of
years
now
our
elections
have
been
known
to
deliver
nothing
more
than
bloodshed.
As
a
result
we
have
documented,
and
we
have
evidence
that
shows
that
each
time
we
are
approaching
an
election
the
incidences
of
politically
motivated
violence
go
up.
In
my
previous
position
when
I
was
still
working
with
the
National
Transitional
Justice
Working
Group,
we
carried
out
a
study
in
which
we
published
a
report
that
is
called
Taking
Transitional
Justice
To
The
People,
a
report
that
shaped
the
current
constitutional
provisions
around
transitional
justice.
And
we
spoke
to
more
than
3,500
people.
What
do
you
feel
when
elections
are
coming?
They
are
afraid
when
elections
are
coming
because
there
are
harrowing
stories
of
political
violence.
So
you
tell
us
as
human
rights
defenders
that
when
elections
are
announced
it
is
bad
news
because
we
know
that
it
is
going
to
trigger
a
lot
of
suffering
in
the
communities.
TN:
How
do
we
cure
that?
How
do
we
deal
with
that?
Because
Dzikamai,
I
get
a
sense
that
whether
opposition
or
ruling
party
have
we
learned
the
lessons
from
the
fact
that
our
elections
are
violent?
What
do
we
do
to
ensure
that
these
elections
are
valid?
Have
we
learnt
anything
at
all?
All
of
us
as
a
nation
DB:
Yeah.
Trevor
this
is
a
very
important
reflection
that
you
are
inviting
us
to,
and
we
have
had
several
conversations
in
the
run-up
to
the
2023
elections.
One
of
the
things
that
we
said
in
the
run-up
to
the
2023
elections
is
that
there
is
no
realistic
possibility
of
this
election
providing
a
free
expression
of
the
will
of
the
people
as
embodied
in
our
constitution.
TN:
Absolutely.
DB:
Now
that
is
an
important
observation
that
has
not
been
disputed,
in
fact
it
has
been
confirmed
by
the
election
audit
that
we
did
together
with
the
Platform
for
Concerned
Citizens
hosted
by
SAPES
Trust.
A
number
of
dialogues
that
did
confirm
that
the
situation
as
it
stands,
there
is
no
realistic
possibility
of
it
delivering
the
free
will
of
the
people.
Now,
when
you
come
to
that
conclusion,
the
question
is
where
do
we
go
from
here?
TN:
Yeah.
DB:
Now,
this
is
where
we
have
failed
as
a
nation,
one
to
find
consensus
around
what
needs
to
be
done.
So
you
ask
me
what
do
we
need
to
do?
There
are
three
levels
of
engagement.
The
first
level
of
engagement,
of
course
where
I
come
from,
from
civil
society,
as
ZimRights
you
know
we
are
grassroots
movement
[of]
over
250
000
members
across
the
country.
And
our
key
focus
is
bringing
citizen
voices
into
the
conversation
on
human
rights.
Now,
we
need
to
be
asking
ourselves
as
civil
society,
are
we
still
in
touch
with
the
communities
that
we
are
representing?
A
long
period
of
professionalisation
of
civil
society
has
led
to
what
we
call
elite
capture,
and
led
to
the
disconnect
between
civil
society
and
the
communities
that
they
represent.
Now,
it
is
very
important
that
we
listen
and
put
our
hand
on
the
pulse
of
the
communities,
and
if
the
communities
are
saying
these
elections
are
delivering
bloodshed
to
us,
why
do
you
let
politicians
proceed
with
them?
So,
there
is
need
for
an
alignment
in
civil
society,
there
is
Trevor,
we
will
say
this
without
apologies,
there
is
a
very
profitable
election
industry
in
this
world.
Billions
of
dollars
go
towards
elections.
No
wonder
why
you
find
discord,
and
this
is
the
time
where
we
need
to
be
speaking
to
ourselves
as
civil
society,
are
we
just
going
to
go
through
these
elections
and
tick
another
box
for
the
sake
of
another
fancy
report?
Our
view
is
we
should
be
able
to
draw
a
line
in
the
sand,
find
each
other
in
civil
society.
What
do
the
communities
expect
us
to
say,
to
do
and
to
provide
leadership,
and
a
lot
of
our
members
that
we
have
been
speaking
to
have
been
saying
why
are
we
doing
this?
So
we
need
that
consensus
at
civil
society
level.
TN:
Before
you
go
on.
Your
people
are
saying
why
are
we
doing
this?
That
is
the
people
at
grassroots.
How
do
you
answer
them?
DB:
Now,
part
of
the
work
that
we
have
been
doing
Trevor
is
around
The
People’s
Human
Rights
Manifesto.
And
it
has
been
a
response
to
that
question,
because
in
these
conversations
these
are
conversations
that
we
took
seriously
in
the
year
2022
because
we
knew
that
2023
was
going
to
be
an
election
year.
So
we
had
some
very
deep
conversations
in
which
we
identified
three
elements
of
a
toxic
political
culture.
One
is
the
culture
of
violence;
this
is
where
you
know
the
ZimRights
strategy
focuses
on
shifting
power
to
the
people.
And
we
are
looking
at
the
power
structure
called
elections.
Who
does
it
work
for?
So,
the
communities
divided
that
into
three,
so
the
first
one
being
violence.
That
when
elections
come,
violence
is
deployed.
I
spoke
about
[how]
the
situation
did
not
allow
for
a
realistic
possibility,
and
one
of
the
factors
for
that
are
the
levels
of
violence.
So,
violence
is
one
of
the
cultures
or
the
pillars
of
the
electoral
culture
in
this
country.
So
we
had
that
conversation
there.
The
second
is
the
culture
of
bribery.
Right,
when
elections
come
politicians
deliver
goods,
so
there
is
an
overflow
of
seed
and
all
those
other
goodies
that
come
in.
So
that
is
a
culture
of
bribery
because
if
these
things
are
coming
every
election,
it
means
you
are
not
getting
to
a
point
where
the
communities
are
fully
empowered.
So,
this
isn’t
an
empowerment
gift,
it
is
a
disempowerment
gift
because
every
electoral
period
is
coming
back.
So
that
is
the
second
item.
The
third
item
is
what
we
call
cultism.
Elections
in
our
country
are
a
beauty
contest,
not
a
contest
of
ideas,
it
is
about
who
and
not
what.
When
we
then
look
at
these
three
things
communities
said
how
do
we
shift
that
power,
we
then
came
up
with
The
People’s
Human
Rights
Manifesto,
in
which
communities
said
we
want
to
try
and
change
the
flow
of
the
conversation,
instead
of
the
politicians
coming
to
us
telling
us
what
they
think
we
want,
we
want
to
go
to
them
with
very
clear
key
asks.
So,
The
People’s
Human
Rights
Manifesto,
it
articulates
10
key
asks
for
the
communities.
Which
is
why
in
the
run
up
to
the
2023
elections
on
12th
April
[2023]
we
launched
The
People’s
Human
Rights
Manifesto.
You
may
have
heard
one
of
the
political
parties
saying
we
do
not
need
a
manifesto,
but
The
People’s
Human
Rights
Manifesto
became
the
people’s
tool
to
shape
the
conversation
that
we
are
speaking
about,
so
that
we
begin
to
shift
those
three
pillars
of
power.
First,
there’s
a
deep
conversation
around
violence.
If
you
then
go
through
the
manifesto
there
are
key
demands
around
violence.
Secondly,
the
issues
of
bribery,
and
then
thirdly
I
mentioned
that
the
issues
of
cultism.
When
the
communities
tell
us
that
why
are
we
doing
this,
we
had
that
conversation
and
then
we
introduced
The
People’s
Human
Rights
Manifesto
as
a
way
of
saying
politicians,
civil
society,
let
us
reconnect
with
what
the
communities
are
saying,
and
build
an
electoral
dialogue
based
on
those
10
asks.
TN:
Wow.
This
is
big.
DB:
It
is.
TN:
This
is
daunting.
DB:
It
is.
TN:
You
have
said
a
couple
of
things
that
I
want
us
to
revisit,
which
are
are
worrying
for
me.
One,
the
professionalisation
of
civil
society.
Speak
to
me
about
that.
And
as
you
speak
to
that
I
want
to
inject
something
perhaps
that
you
might
push
back
against.
Which
is,
I
find
that
the
professionalisation
of
civil
society
has
also
gone
hand
in
hand
with
the
partisanship
that
is
within
the
civil
society.
The
civil
society
is
no
longer
an
uninterested
party,
they
are
taking
a
part
in
the
controversies
that
are
taking
place,
the
toxicity
that
is
taking
place.
Talk
to
me
about
that.
It
is
taking
a
part,
they
are
toxic,
they
are
contributing
to
what
is
happening.
Do
you
want
to
push
back
on
that?
DB:
I
can
only
speak
from
where
I
stand,
from
ZimRights.
And
this
is
an
honest
conversation
that
we
have
been
having
internally.
I
have
been
with
ZimRights
for
over
four
years
now,
and
I
speak
about
this
openly,
our
shifting
power
to
the
people
strategy,
and
perhaps
a
lot
of
people
wonder
where
this
conversation
is
coming
from.
It
is
because
when
we
launched
the
shifting
power
to
the
people
strategy
in
March
2022,
it
is
because
ZimRights
was
in
trouble.
You
are
looking
at
ZimRights,
which
is
Zimbabwe’s
first
post-independence
indigenous
human
rights
advocacy
group.
TN:
Yeah.
DB:
So,
we
pioneered
these
conversations
at
a
very
indigenous
level,
but
that
means
we
also
ran
into
some
problems.
TN:
You
stepped
on
a
few
toes?
DB:
Yes,
because
when
you
build
a
mass
movement,
other
parties
get
interested
and
their
interest
becomes
the
mobilising
power
of
ZimRights.
There
are
a
lot
of
threads
that
we
can
tie
to
this,
but
I
want
to
come
back
to
the
acknowledgement
that
there
comes
a
time
when
we
fell
victim
to
what
I
call
elite
capture.
Because
once
your
mobilising,
power
becomes
visible,
it
means
a
lot
of
money
comes,
but
this
is
not
money
that
comes
without
strings.
So
the
money
comes
[with]
saying
we
want
you
to
do
election
mobilisation.
Because
of
that
they
came
a
time
when
I
think
the
elections
work
overwhelmed
the
entire
movement.
So
that
is
one
level,
to
then
say
human
rights
are
not
only
about
elections,
and
in
our
new
strategy
we
have
the
eight
actions
on
framework
which
seek
to
dismantle
that
imbalance
of
thinking
human
rights
should
just
be
about
elections.
There
are
people,
who
when
they
heard
about
ZimRights
only
thought
about
election
mobilisation.
So
that
is
the
first
level
of
capture.
The
second
level,
you
know
ZimRights
is
a
grassroots
movement,
a
lot
of
people
do
not
actually
know
that
ZimRights
is
not
an
NGO,
right,
it
is
an
association.
So
this
is
250,000
people
coming
together
saying
we
want
to
drive
human
rights.
But
when
they
do
that
in
this
context,
they
then
thought
we
need
to
also
start
a
resource
mobilisation.
So
they
set
up
a
professional
secretariat
to
provide
technical
assistance.
—
Standard
Post
published
in:
Featured