Plot to minimise scale of Gukurahundi

By Tshepo Mabalane Mabalane

“He who lives with untruth lives in spiritual slavery. Freedom is still the bonus we receive for knowing the truth,” Martin Luther King Jnr.

A popular but worrying rumour doing rounds within the international human rights circles is that Mugabe’s government is sponsoring an elaborate exercise to minimize the scale of the Matabeleland genocide.

The exercise, the rumour goes, has been calculated to ride on many willing and strategically situated Zimbabweans in many international institutions be they universities or voluntary organizations.

The recent announcement by Zimbabwe PM Morgan Tsvangirai that defends the appointment of human rights suspected offender, former Matabeleland North Jacob Mudenda, further lends credence to this rumour.

Most of these willing agents, it is said, have a direct interest in the derailment of the quest for justice because they were either directly involved as members of the Fifth brigade, as ZANU PF youths or their parents were.

Since 2010 when Genocide Watch – a global research outfit specializing on genocide, confirmed Gukurahundi as genocide; and since Zenzele Ndebele’s documentary film on the massacres, some of these agents, alongside their masters in Harare, naturally panicked hence their brazen activities.

Considering the seriousness of the issue it was not surprising that Dinizulu Macaphulana issued a strong riposte to Professor Maurice T. Vambe’s recent preposterous article entitled ‘Zimbabwean GENOCIDE: Voices and perceptions from ordinary people in Matabeleland and the Midlands provinces 30 years on’ that was published in Volume 10 of the African Identities Journal.

In the article, Vambe, whom I have always held in high regard, dismally fails to overcome both his prejudices and private interests. His apparent disregard for overwhelming evidence that is not favourable to his case can only be matched by Armenian GENOCIDE denialists and deflectors.

Why, one might ask, does Vambe abuse the social sciences in an attempt to sugar-coat such a hideous act of brutality that still shapes the current state of affairs in Zimbabwe? Only Vambe knows.

Treating evidence as something to shoehorn into his pre-conceived worldview and theoretical framework, Vambe does not only evoke an aggressive response, but throws away normal scholarly conventions about duteous accuracy and meticulous fairness to the wind.

This is worrying because he seems oblivious to deficiencies which, otherwise, should be obvious even to a freshman.

For example, he masks weak and tired arguments behind old school scholarship of excessive graphs and pie charts. Vambe deals with a very serious problem by trying to evade it, choosing not to engage with issues but misrepresent them. Selective internet trawling and anecdotal malaise is substituted for evidence.

Sadly, Vambe is not alone in this dangerous drivel. Many a Zimbabwean has refused to accept the GENOCIDE but these delusional rationalizations arguments routinely proffered by the Vambes of this world.

It is these arguments, in Lutherian terms, and rationalisations and the incessant search for scapegoats that have become psychological cataracts that have blinded many Zimbabweans to the sins of the GENOCIDE. It is a shame that they have now found a home in academic journals.

Four main rationalising arguments have gained currency over the years and, almost verbatim, Vambe repeats them in his journal article.

1. GENOCIDE is history; let us move on

2. It was not GENOCIDE but civil war

3. It is not only Matabeleland that is marginalised

4. 200 of ‘us’ have died too under MDC so let’s remove Mugabe and move on (notice here the mantra here is Mugabe must go, but no-one says where. In fact no-one says Mugabe must go to The Hague).

As a scholar Vambe is fully aware of the folly of a brazen denial and as such he, in his article, attaches to the genocide a new spin-a deflection. The new tactic, so it seems, is deflect, deflect, deflect; and by all means necessary deflect.

Considering the extent of the distortions and deflections in Vambe’s article, it is clear that a response such as Macaphulana’s was in order. Of course Macaphulana has pushed the monkey even higher up the tree; I, therefore, need not push it further higher because we might end up losing sight of it.

Rather I will try and add a human and victim perspective to the response. In modern isintu we say ‘ungahlekelela indwangu/mfene emfeni iyakhombisa isdumbu’ kene mutjikalanga tjitswa koyi, ukasekelela mbabi ingula inodla sepa’. As such, this Vambe’s scholarship should be questioned.

The challenge is: how am I to respond? It is of course tempting to respond in an equally distorted and inaccurate manner ridiculing Vambe by misrepresenting facts. But that will be pointless and dishonest not to mention that it would be an insult to the victims of genocide.

It is, in fact, rather difficult to write a response to Vambe’s article. But not because it is well argued or has overwhelming evidence in its favour but all because it amounts to a convoluted but clumsy obfuscation and a soporific rigmarole.

Had it been a verbal discourse Vambe would have easily cut a quarrelsome bully. The article is often little more than an aggregation of convenient factoids. To rebut this highly selective appeal to evidence would be unspeakably tedious and reactive.

Each and every one of Vambe’s misrepresentations can be challenged and corrected. I however choose to challenge Vambe on his two major findings which are constructed with a specific agenda-deflection.

He says: 1. I acknowledge that the victims of this GENOCIDE have moved on with their lives despite the history of their persecution.

2. Respondents from 50 years and above expect the perpetrators of the ‘violence’ to be imprisoned while the young generation wants the transformation of the economy and therefore employment.

The first finding is a bizarre similar to anti-Semitic behaviour and creedal statement to make. Underlying Vambe’s agenda is a pervasive belief that the genocide is history.

Those who continue to seek justice whether retributive or otherwise are just detractors. It is intellectual nonsense not to mention provocative and repulsive.

In fact Vambe repeats the mantra of the perpetrators. Mugabe, for example, says the genocide occurred during a moment of madness. Why? Because he knows that you don’t hold a grudge against mad people. Rather you forgive them and move on with your life.

To Emmerson Mnangagwa, the chief priest of blood-bath, the GENOCIDE is a closed chapter.

In essence, Vambe is in agreement with the guilty; like them he believes that the chapter cannot be revisited because to do so would be to destroy the nation.

Naturally, a question arises: is Vambe one of the Fifth Brigade activists who, after the genocide, laid down their machetes and picked up pens to pursue academia with the sole purpose of later abusing their positions and cover up for their gory acts?

It is an open secret in Zimbabwe today that the ticket to social mobility is not necessarily the participation in the liberation struggle but participation in the GENOCIDE.

Many politicians and mandarins from both ZANU and so called opposition and even civil society took part in the GENOCIDE.

Some in institutions of higher learning across the globe are scholarship beneficiaries of the GENOCIDE institution. And some are sons and daughters of perpetrators. The list of names is endless, but that discussion should be left for another day.

We have sufficient evidence in mainstream media pointing to the fact that in actuality Zimbabwe is stuck and has not moved an inch from the GENOCIDE both on the perpetrators and victims’ side.

First, there is a causal link between ZANU’s clinging to power and the fear of genocide retribution.

Second, not long ago 700 former members of the Fifth Brigade visited the Njelele shrine to cleanse themselves of the Gukurahundi sins.

Third, Jonathan Moyo, who reportedly lost his father to the genocide, has had his proposal for a GENOCIDE monument shot down. Why? It is a matter of conjecture.

Fourth, all Mthwakazi groups have most of their views built around this genocide of course amongst other things.

Fifth, Vambe must know that all Matabeleland South growth points and towns have a former Fifth Brigade operative who remained behind after the dastardly act and those people are running either a store or butchery and they can be pointed out by the locals. Why are they still there if people have moved on?

There is moving away and moving on and Vambe fails dismally to distinguish between the two.

In addition, how can the victims move on when the perpetrators have not? Vambe wishes the victims will have moved on and yet they have not for the sore cannot be bandaged without cleaning. Rather it festers.

While Vambe serves us with deliberate omissions we have recourse to precedents. Vambe’s distortions and omissions point to Genocide Watch’s 12 steps to genocide denial. That can be found on www.genocidewatch.org/genocide/12waystodenygenocide.html

And all the 12 ways can be traced in Vambe’s article ranging from point 3 which is about rationalising the deaths as the result of tribal conflict to number 9 the claim that victims are receiving good treatment.

One of the integral components of research is to provide a report of how the data were created and how we came to possess them.

According to Vambe, he interviewed over 300 people over a period of a month in five districts namely, Mberengwa, Gweru, Tsholotsho, Nkayi and Umzingwani. Why he focused on these areas he doesn’t say.

Umzingwani district, as we all know, is Canaan Banana’s home area as Insiza (Filabusi) is Enos Nkala’s home area. These areas, despite one or two minor incidents, remained largely untouched because of those two people.

This was also the case with both Binga and Hwange because of Jacob Mudenda and Obert Mpofu.

Why does Vambe avoid the hard hit areas such as Mpindo, Lupane, Plumtree, Wilonki and Joshua Nkomo’s home area, Kezi where there are still some death camps to this date?

Why does Vambe not interview senior leaders of the then ZAPU such as Dabengwa or prominent people like MDC President Professor Welshmen Ncube whose elders and close relations were callously slaughtered by the Gukurahundi perpetrators that he pitifully tries so much to protect?

Or better still, why did he not interview the then Commander of the Fifth Brigade, Air Marshal Perrence Shiri and find out if he has moved on from being haunted by the atrocities that he committed?

Only Vambe can answer that. Vambe might as well have gone to interview people in Buhera or America about Gukurahundi.

How about this outright lie? Vambe says all 300 respondents refused to give their names. This is a pathetic lie from a whole don!

If the BBC and many other programs were able to interview people live on TV, even right in the middle of the genocide, then why would they fear coming out in the open now and in a journal article for that?

Vambe also attempts to drive a wedge between the respondents. Those from 50years and above, we are told, expect the perpetrators of the ‘violence’ to be imprisoned while the young generation only desire employment.

This supports the argument that the old over 50s will soon die and disappear with the GENOCIDE secret, whilst those under 50 don’t want to be reminded or bogged down with the sordid history.

One wonders why then those under 50 and are expressing a common grievance expressed on rooftops by all young people would want to be anonymous if there are this ignorant or naïve?

Again, it is curious that Vambe will divide his respondents into those of under 50 and those of over 50 or direct and indirect victims. It seems the description of old and young is built on his positions and interpretations which are underpinned by cognitive biases that predispose him to fail to notice or to discount data that is inconsistent with his view.

He does this in two main ways.

First, like many before him, Vambe deliberately gives the genocide the face of an illiterate villager, as he points out in the study limitations-amazingly in a country where literacy is hovering above 90%.

One also wonders why he doesn’t dwell on the genocide’s feminine side and bring us the memories of women who were raped; and had private parts bayoneted and fetuses slit off their bellies.

Vambe, like many before him, ignores a five year old boy who was forced to bury his own father. Neither does he seek to know what goes on in the minds of those people; all he can say is that they have moved on.

Vambe should know that moving on is never easy particularly so when one sees the mass graves daily, the bones that are now popping up from the Gukurahundi shallow graves and when denialists routinely rubbish evidence.

In our family we have grown used to a routine painful moment. A cousin of mine, besides my grandmother, is the only one who was there when my father was killed. We have never spoken about it.

I don’t know what he remembers or thinks about me. When we meet elders in the rural areas at introduction in our Sesotho, Ke nna ngwana wa Kopantso (He is Kopantso’s son). The next thing is silence. All my thirty-so years of life I have been used to the reaction.

To Vambe, these silences mean we have moved on. And yet I know that they have a different meaning. It gets worse when my son asks about his grandfather. It is even going to be worse when he grows up. One hopes, he will move on the Vambe way.

Silences should not be confused with moving on. Instead, the genocide has to be moved away from the face of the villager. It has the faces of thirty-year old medical doctors, lawyers, journalists, scholars, teachers, accountants and it is foolish to think the matter can just be forgotten.

Give heed to Ben Okri’s words that a nation cannot escape from itself and all its truths and all of its lies. If its lies linger for too long in the unspoken dialogue of the people, sooner or later it will lead to unpleasantness.

We all have recently witnessed how efforts to honestly and effectively deal with the GENOCIDE by MDC co-Minister of National Healing Moses Mzila have been thwarted and even led to his arrest and subsequent prosecution.

Second, Vambe notoriously presents crackpots as if they were main-stream. This lunatic fringe seriously needs to be done away with. For example, Vambe claims that the under 50s seek employment and not justice for their slain ones.

And yet, as we all know, any youth in the world today talks about empowerment and employment. Why, then, will Vambe attribute that only to the Matabeleland youth? Why should it be a counter to the quest for justice? How are the two linked?

Vambe please do not take advantage of your privileged position to construct a sociological version that you impose upon us, the victims of this horrendous act as our reality. It is our reality not yours that the unconditional datum of your inquiry begins. We are the authoritative speakers of our experience.

Vambe like many African scholars suffers from and exhibits symptoms of a serious and incurable bout of exocitisation virus. The virus only sees the suffering of only those close to us, but careless of those distanced by gender distance race culture.

In fact those different from us annoy us because they cry too much. We see them as statistics not individuals. At best we want to obscure their suffering through hit and run studies, but you cannot hit and run on issues like genocide.

To conclude, it is frightening that Vambe gives signals that wants to conduct or should I say concoct a research as broad as the CCJP one. I hope this time you won’t fit the paradigm that buttresses the 10th point in the 12 ways of denying genocide where people blame imagined century old tribal wars.

Please do not bring conveniently Mzilikazi into this. I have not traces of Nguni blood in three generations I know of. I am Sotho, Kalanga and Sarwa. My ancestors and also more than 70% of the genocide victims have dwelt in present day Zimbabwe going back 700 years.

And that said, no Nguni deserves death, ‘every culture is one culture, we ought to take a stand against oppression and injustice everywhere’. The perpetrators must be brought to book by all means necessary. In countries like France and Germany genocide denial is a crime and we shall not rest till that is the same in Zimbabwe.

Vambe signs off with a very condescending remark for those with eyes. ‘To the respondents, closure to the issue of genocide in Zimbabwe will only be guaranteed when government authorities deliberately develop Matabeleland and the Midlands in PARTICULAR and the rest of Zimbabwe in general’. What a nerve.

The writer Tshepo Mabalane Mabalane can be reached on [email protected]