By Takudzwa Changadeya
Bereaved families in Matabeleland who lost their relatives during the 1983 Gukurahundi genocide said they wont be hoodwinked and fiddled around with by President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s new charm offensive, saying it’s a political gimmick.
Gukurahundi resulted in the death of more than 20 000 people in Matabeleland and Midlands province, with many more displaced, mutilated and traumatised.
It was carried out by the North Korean trained Fifth brigade, Gukurahundi is derived from a Shona language term which loosely translates to “the early rain which washes away the chaff before the spring rains”.
They are saying Mnangagwa’s upcoming Gukurahundi healing programme, expected to be conducted this month, is nothing more than a political campaign strategy aimed at tricking citizens into thinking that his administration cares for them.
Mnangagwa’s efforts are perceived as a political strategem throwing dust into citizens’ eyes as the country heads towards the general elections.
In an exclusive interview with this publication, Sibaliso Siziba, a 67-year-old from Lupane in Matebeleland North, said she is still lamenting her family members whom she lost during the genocide.
“Two of my brothers were killed in front of me and an apology or dialogue will not bring them back or ease the trauma I suffered as they were killed like flies.
“An apology isn’t enough as thousands of people were murdered. Only a mentally disturbed person can accept the apology,” she said.
Siziba said that Matabeleland will not be voting into power a political party that ignored their pleas for four decades.
Seventy-year-old Dumezweni Ndlovu, also from Lupane, said that Mnangagwa’s administration is pushing for the Gukurahundi healing programme to trick them into thinking that they care for people who were affected as Zimbabwe heads towards general elections.
“The truth is that they don’t even care. It’s a political gimmick aimed at tricking us. We are aware of that and some of us will never participate in the forthcoming healing processes,” he said.
“I lost a lot of relatives during the Gukurahundi genocide. It’s a wound that will never heal and I will never forgive everyone who was involved because we are carrying scars for life from the horror that we witnessed.”
Mnangagwa has been trying to exonerate himself from the massacre since 2020, when he tasked traditional leaders in Matabeleland to bring closure to the Gukurahundi issue.
In 2022, he presented a manual to be used by traditional leaders during the consultations set to start next month.
Since coming to power, Mnangagwa has engaged traditional leaders on a number of occasions to come up with a home grown solution to issues arising out of the Gukurahundi conflict.
In 1999, the late former president Robert Mugabe who was behind the skirmishes sensationally said: “Gukurahundi was a moment of madness’
