Interviews with Jestina Mukoko

The Zimbabwe Peace Project is an organization that was founded in the year 2000 as a result of a lot of violence that was happening at the time. It was founded in the aftermath of the government-proposed constitution. There’d been a referendum in February 2000, and I think it was the first event in which Zimbabweans said no to anything that had been proposed by the ZANU-PF government. In 20 years, they got their first no. And it was the same year when the Movement for Democratic Change, led by Morgan Tsvangirai, was going to contest in the first parliamentary election in June of that same year.

So after the February referendum, the country just caught onto mayhem when there were farm invasions, which were accompanied by a lot of violence that affected both the farm owners, the previous farm owners, and their farm workers. And as the preparations for the June elections were also going on, there was also a lot of violence that was meant to whip people in line, because obviously ZANU-PF had recognized that the people had said no to them in the referendum. And they feared that probably they were going to say no to them again in the parliamentary elections that were coming up in June.

And so because of that violence, a group of faith-based and human rights organizations came together, and they decided on establishing the Zimbabwe Peace Project as a vehicle that would bring information that is related to political violence in the sense that it would operate through a network of monitors throughout the country who would be resident in the constituencies for which they monitor and document. And that meant that all the constituencies in the country, be they urban or rural, would actually have eyes and ears on the ground in terms of people who would be able to bring in information that was related to political violence.

And on a monthly basis, the Zimbabwe Peace Project produces what we call a monthly monitor, which is a report that looks at the incidences of political violence that would have taken place in the previous month, because we produce our report in retrospect. And we also think that it is important for us to invest a lot in the verification of the cases that are pointed at by our monitors. So we invest a lot in following up on those cases and establishing the truth about them, and also considering that, we have a number of members who were the original founding members of the organization.

We also get in touch with them in terms of triangulating our information when we get any information within the organization. And I think we have also diversified a little bit in terms of our report, because now we also monitor and document around the distribution of food, because way back in 2006, we recognized that there was tendency for the politicization of the distribution of food. And when people get to a special event, like an election, citizens are forced to vote with their tummies, so as to ensure that they have a guarantee of the security of food.

And this is regardless of the fact that the president is on record as saying that no citizen of Zimbabwe will go hungry simply because they belong to a particular political party. But I think as an organization, from time to time, we have recognized that when people are not politically correct, they are discriminated against in terms of getting – in terms of getting food.

Jestina M. Mukoko is the National Director of the Zimbabwe Peace Project, a nonprofit organization that monitors and documents political violence in Zimbabwe. As Zimbabwe’s premier monitoring body, the organization maintains a strong network throughout the country that is able to bring widespread attention to occurrences of political violence.

A long-time leader in the human rights and activist communities in Zimbabwe, Ms. Mukoko was abducted from her home on December 3, 2008, by state security agents for her work monitoring the brutality of the Robert Mugabe government. During her 21-day abduction, she was tortured, beaten, and forced to confess to a crime she did not commit. She remained detained until a court granted her bail on March 2, 2009.

For her steadfastness on issues related to human rights, Jestina Mukoko was named the 2009 Laureate of the City of Weimar (Germany) Human Rights Prize and a 2010 recipient of the U.S. Secretary of State’s International Women of Courage Award. In 2009, Ms. Mukoko was awarded the NANGO (National Association of Nongovernmental Organizations) Peace Award. For her commitment and perseverance, she received the French National Order of the Legion of Honor award in 2011.

She serves on several boards, including those of the Zimbabwe Election Support Network, the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum, and the Institute for a Democratic Alternative for Zimbabwe. A former news anchor for the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation, she is also mentoring with the Female Students Network, a youth organization.

A peace and human rights campaigner, Jestina Mukoko is also a mother. She holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Politics and Administration from the University of Zimbabwe. Ms. Mukoko was the 2010 Fellow at the Oak Institute for International Human Rights at Colby College in Maine. In 2012, she joined other mid-career professionals as a Draper Hills Summer Fellow on Democracy and Development Program at Stanford University.