In January
1983, a crackdown by the elite Fifth Brigade in Matabeleland North was
initiated to purge the dissidents, and it lasted until late 1984. The brigade's
directives apparently specified a search for local ZAPU officials and veterans
of the Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary
Army (ZIPRA).In Bulawayo, for instance, Ndebele men of fighting age were
considered potential dissidents and therefore, guilty of subversive activities.
Most detained were summarily executed or marched to re-education camps. Most of
the dead were shot in public executions, often after being forced to dig their
own graves in front of family and fellow villagers. On occasion the Fifth
Brigade also massacred large groups of Ndebele, seemingly at random for instance the
Cewale River bank shooting where 62 people were shot at. Seven survived
with gunshot wounds, the other 55 died. Another way 5 Brigade used to kill
large groups of people was to burn them alive in huts. They did this in
Tsholotsho and also in Lupane. They would routinely round up dozens, or even
hundreds, of civilians and march them at gun point to a central place, like a
school or bore-hole. There they would be forced to sing Shona songs praising
ZANU, at the same time being beaten with sticks. These gatherings usually ended
with public executions. Those killed could be ex-ZIPRAs, ZAPU officials, or
anybody chosen at random. The Zimbabwe government repudiated these allegations
and accused the hostile foreign press of fabricating stories.
The
Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace in Zimbabwe documented at least 2,000
deaths, and speculated that the actual number could be 8,000 or higher. Local
Ndebele put the figure between 20,000 and 30,000. Journalist Heidi Holland
referenced a death toll of 8,000 as a typical conservative estimate. In
February 1983 the International Red Cross disclosed that 1,200 Ndebele had been
murdered that month alone. However the documentary that reflects what exactly
transpired during the Gukurahundi
massacre lies in the oral traditions of the Ndebele people in Zimbabwe. Stories
are still being told of how mothers were made to kill their newly born babies, some stories relate the
sexual abuse that women were subjected to. Thus Gukurahundi is a cancer rooted
deep within the hearts of the Ndebele people in Zimbabwe hence the recent
demonstrations by the Mthwakazi cadres at the ZITF were they were heckling the President of Zimbabwe to address
the issue.
A
case in point is the 1994
genocide in Rwanda, where up to one
million people perished and as many as 250,000 women were raped, leaving the
country’s population traumatized and its infrastructure decimated. Since then,
Rwanda has embarked on an ambitious justice and reconciliation process with the
ultimate aim of all Rwandans once again living side by side in peace. In the
years following the genocide, more than 120,000 people were detained and
accused of bearing criminal responsibility for their participation in the
killings. To deal with such an overwhelming number of perpetrators, a judicial
response was pursued on three levels:
- the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda,
- the national court system, and
- the Gacaca courts.
The
International Justice system needs to set up
a commission of enquiry to establish the number of people that were lost
during this time and also a criminal tribunal to bring to justice the
masterminds behind Gukurandi.Zimbabwe also needs to take a lesson from Rwanda
those that are guilty for the Gukurahundi massacres should face the full wrath
of the law. The Ndebele people could sure use some apologies,some compensation,
some acknowledgement in order for them to have closure that Gukurahundi indeed happened and someone
is sorry about it.
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