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22 December 2024
ZAPU marks today as a day of remembering the victims of the Ndebele Genocide (1983-1987) commonly known as Gukurahundi. The Ndebele Genocide is a microcosm of the Jewish Holocaust (1933-1945) and stands a stark reminder of the futility of having independence without freedom. The horrors of Gukurahundi have been documented in various ways but a platform for survivors to speak out openly remains a fleeting mirage. A chief-led Gukurahundi dialogue programme launched by President Mnangagwa in July this year remains on ice, clearly facing the stillbirth that similar window-dressing efforts have faced in the past. Apparently, there is no motivation for self-incrimination.
Political posturing and shedding of crocodile tears remains the government’s default strategy to buy time, hoping that the issue of Gukurahundi will eventually disappear as its victims die. No one outside the highest level of government has ever seen the report from the Dumbutshena Commision of Inquiry, established to investigate the Entumbane skirmishes between November 1980 and March 1981. Similarly, the Chihambakwe Commission of Inquiry established by President Mugabe in 1983 to investigate the massacres of civilians in Matabeleland by the Fifth Brigade issued a report that remains hidden from the public domain. In 2019, the Chairperson of the National Peace and Reconciliation Commission (NPRC), the late Retired High Court judge Selo Nare told the media that the Dumbutshena and Chihambakwe reports had been lost.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Someone somewhere knows of the whereabouts of the “lost” reports. Perpetrators of Gukurahundi by commission are also officially known. The Zimbabwe National Army holds complete records of the list of soldiers deployed as members of the Fifth Brigade under the command of one Colonel ‘Black Jesus’ Perrance Shiri. The perpetrators of Gukurahundi are known and their trail of destruction remains evident in the parts of Matabeleland and Midlands they ravaged. Some victims of Gukurahundi can point at their rapists and torturers now decorated civil servants, diplomats or army top brass. A longer list exists, of Gukurahundi perpetrators by omission – institutions and individuals who watched in silence as the Ndebele Genocide occurred during half a decade of rape, torture and wanton bloodletting.
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Hi we have something to say! In this Big Conversation - for a Christmas Greeting, as we see the end of 2024
Between Thulani Nkala and Zapu President Michael Sibangilizwe Nkomo- in a Big Conversation about the Visit to South Africa - put together by Matabeleland Broadcasting Corporation
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Liberation Context and Evolution
Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU) was at the forefront and actively participated in the liberation of our country, Zimbabwe, leading to the 1980 political independence. Shortly after our hard-earned independence a military operation codenamed Gukurahundi was launched via the Korean-trained Fifth Brigade, unleashed by the ZANU-led government of the day, ostensibly to eliminate armed dissidents purportedly working to topple the newly inaugurated government. From January 1982 to December 1987 over 40,000 unarmed civilians were wantonly massacred by the Fifth Brigade with collaboration of other security departments both official and unofficial.
The Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace (CCJP) [and the International Association of Genocide Scholars] estimated that over 20,000 people lost their lives, but their figure was conservative as it covered one district in Matabeleland North (Tsholotsho) and another in Matabeleland South (Matobo). Midlands Province as a whole was not considered. By all definitions, a genocide was committed by the ZANU-led government of Zimbabwe using primarily the Fifth Brigade which was directly answerable to the then Prime Minister, Robert Gabriel Mugabe, and no one else. The Fifth Brigade was created solely for Gukurahundi and disbanded with the signing of the Unity Accord on 22 December, 1987. Members of the Fifth Brigade were integrated into regular army units with many of them posing as gallant veterans of the liberation struggle, promoted and decorated by their Commander-in-Chief.
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Gukurahundi victims deserve justice in their living years
When the trans-Atlantic slave trade was abolished by Britain in 1807 with the United States following suit in 1808, many former slaves were alive and lived to see a new dawn of freedom. Though the slave trade continued illegally well into the 1860s at least it had been outlawed formally with many former slaves rising to not only be free but to actually beat the odds in academia, business and sport championships. Some former slaves were even assisted by Uncle Sam to sail back to Africa to establish their own colony in Liberia. Others remained in America and used their freedom to fight for civil liberties. To them, liberty was a secondary issue. Freedom was the first step towards justice for the trans-Atlantic slave trade that had spanned across 400 years.
History also records that when Soviet soldiers poured into Auschwitz in January 1945, they found some survivors of the Holocaust, left behind by the Nazis to die. They were still alive, albeit emaciated and on the brink of death but their liberation gave them a fighting chance. To the Jews liberated by the Red Army, freedom meant the dawn of a new era. They could finally find their own place in the world as free men and women.
Even those that perished shortly afterwards died knowing that freedom had finally come even within moments of their final days on earth. They had tasted freedom even for a fleeting moment. Those who made it went on to beat the odds and thrive in the world of business, espionage, media and political influence.
The above examples, plucked from a large volume of human history, clearly prove the African adage that says there is no night so long that it does not end with dawn. It goes without saying that there are many who perished during the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the Holocaust. Estimates peg the death tolls in the millions. Exact figures vary according to source and context but every death caused by the oppression of a man by another is one too many. Yet humanity has shown sustained resistance to learn from history. Every single day a new tyrant is born. Pol Pot, Idi Amin Dada, and Robert Gabriel Mugabe penned their own chapters in the blood of their own kinsmen. Without absolving the likes of Adolf Hitler who committed atrocities against Jewish people in Nazi Germany, no one expected Zimbabweans to perish at the hands of their own kith and kin, Robert Mugabe.
The Gukurahundi Genocide of Ndebele Zimbabweans between 1982 and 1987 is Mugabe’s greatest blemish and makes it regrettable that he was born at all. It is debatable but there was something inherently evil about Robert Mugabe. He was an eloquent anglophile with excellent table manners but his heart emitted darkness that only the devil could admire. It was Sir Robert Mugabe who singlehandedly masterminded Gukurahundi and deployed his legion of minions to execute his evil plan to the letter. Anyone who opposed Mugabe or tried to reason with him about the demerits of annihilating a whole tribe from existential memory might as well have slapped the dictator for good measure. Mugabe reserved his deluxe packages in hate for those who commiserated with his victims. There were many willing foot soldiers no doubt, but a good number of Gukurahundi perpetrators were too afraid to disobey Mugabe’s orders.
When the atrocities stopped with the signing of the Unity Accord on 22 December 1987, Mugabe made it the remainder of his life’s mission to evade accountability let alone punishment for his Gukurahundi bloodbath. In his warped thinking, Gukurahundi was a closed chapter. Victims of Gukurahundi had to endure decades of watching a free Mugabe enjoying all the standard perks of a tin pot dictator. Under his iron dorm of a heavily armed security detail, nothing uncomfortable ever happened to Robert Mugabe, except the time he tripped and fell on arrival at Harare International Airport due to a badly laid carpet – not old age, you! Mugabe’s demise only came on 15 November 2017, when his own disgruntled army generals deposed him in a coup d’état supported worldwide.
