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President Emmerson Mnangagwa has said that open discussions about the sensitive issue of the Gukurahundi Massacres are necessary to prevent similar killings from happening again. Ironically the Zanu PF leader played a key role as the State Security Minister during the eighties when an estimated 20 000 innocent civilians were slaughtered by the notorious North Korean trained Fifth Brigade of the Zimbabwe National Army.
Debating the controversial Patriotic Bill in Parliament, Norton legislator Temba Mliswa accused Zanu-PF of orchestrating the massacres. His sentiments caused pandemonium in the National Assembly resulting in the acting Speaker of Parliament Tatenda Mavetera chasing him away.
Vice President Constantino Chiwenga claims the government is seized with the issue of the Gukurahundi Massacres that claimed an estimated 20 000 innocent lives in Matabeleland and Midlands provinces in the early 1980s and “a solution will be found as we are all Zimbabweans”.
The Zanu PF secretary for administration Obert Mpofu claims those vocal about the Gukurahundi Massacres were staying in urban areas during the time and have little appreciation of what happened during the genocide in which an estimated 20 000 civilians were killed by the military.
Exiled former Foreign Affairs minister Walter Mzembi has advised President Emmerson Mnangagwa to take a step back from any process aimed at resolving the Gukurahundi issue because he was one of the “chief architects” of the killings.
By Tafi Mhaka
I never found it instructive that one of my dad’s best friends hailed from Matabeleland. It wasn’t VaNleya’s ethnicity that I regularly appreciated on Saturday afternoons, but his liberal, dynamic and jovial character. Mr Nleya loved to drink beer and talk. And although my dad didn’t drink alcohol, he got along extraordinary well with VaNleya.
Whenever he was around, our home would be filled with diverse, stimulating conversations and wonderful music blaring from the brown vinyl player in the sitting room. We would always play our treasured 12-inch records and enjoy the pleasure of a small, basic liberty in life: friendship.
By Dr Obert Mpofu
Zimbabwe attained its independence in 1980 after a gruesome and painful struggle which stretched over one-and-a-half decades.
The decades of war probably exacerbated the ethnic and political divisions which were planted by the white settler government in order to ascertain their grip over the country.
Like the fate of many African countries, the independence quickly resulted in a sharp ethnic and political division. The hallmark of this was the escalation of this deep rooted ethnical and political division into a sharp crisis which became known as Gukurahundi.
The MDC has thrown its weight behind traditional leaders who are calling upon President Emmerson Mnangagwa to apologise over the 1980s Gukurahundi massacres.
Eddie Cross: “In Zimbabwe we have no memorials to the Zipra and Zanla and Rhodesian armies who fought for control of this country from 1965 to 1980 in what the Americans called a ‘low intensity Guerrilla War’. Like all wars between brothers this was a savage conflict in which there were few rules and many casualties, both physical and psychological.”
Dumiso Dabengwa’s Zapu has cast doubt on President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s sincerity in dealing with Gukurahundi after the Zanu PF leader pledged government assistance in the exhumation and reburial of the victims.