Tsvangirai to visit scene of 2008 Chiweshe massacres
One of the many scenes of violence during the 2008 election period
By Tichaona Sibanda
26 October 2012
Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai will on Saturday visit the scene where 14 party activists were killed in a single night at Chaona village in Chiweshe, Mashonaland central province.
The deadly May 2008 massacre, described by some of the surviving victims as vicious and despicable, has been blamed on ZANU PF militia who were allegedly led by two well known legislators and a senior member of the CIO.
No one has been arrested for the attacks despite the MDC in 2009 submitting a list to the Attorney General and the Police Commissioner General Augustine Chihuri, with the list of the perpetrators.
The ZANU PF MP for Muzarabani South, Edward Raradza, is believed to have provided transport for the militia to Chaona, while Mazowe North MP, retired Major Cairo Mhandu, and CIO director Elias Kanengoni, directed the massacre.
Kanengoni is well known for his role in shooting and maiming Gweru businessman Patrick Kombayi in 1990 when the late Vice President Simon Muzenda tried to stop him campaigning against him.
Kombayi was at the time the National Organising Secretary of the Zimbabwe Unity Movement (ZUM) led by Edgar Tekere. Kanengoni was convicted for the assassination attempt but was later pardoned by Robert Mugabe.
The MDC-T MP for Mazowe central, Shepherd Mushonga, told SW Radio Africa that the Prime Minister will take time to visit the graves of the victims.
The premier will also talk to the families of the victims and survivors still living in the area. The MDC President will later address a memorial rally at Chaona business centre, in honour of the victims.
Mushonga said the massacred villagers were men who were tied up and killed by blows to the head or by machetes. He said while the killings may have been frenzied, the attacks were well orchestrated.
‘The awful thing about this massacre is that people were executed in cold blood and in public view by perpetrators well known in the district and province. These innocent people were destroyed when all they did was to exercise their democratic right to choose their leader,’ Mushonga said.
The MP told us he has faith that one day justice will prevail as there are many witnesses to the massacre.
It was on the evening of 5th May 2008, three days after Robert Mugabe’s regime finally released the official results of the March 29th election, when over 200 ZANU PF militias rampaged through the Chaona village, killing the 14 MDC-T supporters. The massacre remains one of the bloodiest scenes of political violence in the past decade.
ZANU PF militants and men in army uniform, led by Mhandu and Raradza, brutally beat or shot dead the 14 MDC-T members.
But many more were beaten during the attacks. Women were stripped and beaten so viciously that whole sections of flesh fell away from their buttocks. The militias also resorted to genital mutilation.
The postmortem report for victims listed ‘crushed genitals’ as one of the causes of death. Mushonga said the militia and soldiers inflicted serious injuries on those they didn’t kill by dipping their knobkerries and sticks into paraquat, a highly toxic herbicide used for weed control, before beating their victims.
The herbicide blocks the healing process and many of the victims died months later from their wounds.
19 Responsesto “Tsvangirai to visit scene of 2008 Chiweshe massacres”
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Yes, Mr Prime Minister, the elections are round the corner; this is a photo opportunity you cannot miss!
These people died a miserable death, Mr Prime Minister, to get you to hold the office you now hold and give MDC majority in parliament; how tragic that even with all this political power not even one of the murderers has been brought to book. Worse still, their deaths were all for nothing since the next elections are set to be as violent as the 2008 elections. The COPAC draft that PM has already approved will do nothing end the violence although he will tell the electorate otherwise, of course.
How very, very tragic that the suffering and deaths of others are only useful as photo opportunities and nothing more!
In regards to the 2008-elections violence; the post of a Prime Minister had not yet been established and the position being contested was that of a Presdent. The Lancaster House Constitution without the GPA was the Constitution of Zimbabwe..The MDC after the elections,had a majority in the Assembly, minority in the Senate and the Executive President was and still is the held by Zanu (Mugabe). An Assembly bill passed by the MDC must be approved by Zanu in the Senate and assented into law by a Zanu Executive President. How is the MDC “…with all this political power not even one of the murderers has been brought to book”? Tell the readers Wilbert..
Your obsession with the Lancaster House constitution is something else. You are blaming it for everything.
Parliament has the power and authority to impeach the state president, are you telling the same parliament cannot even get a Police Commissioner to arrest murderers with all the evidence and witnesses? Parliament has the power it is just that THIS MDC parliament is useless.
The nation does not want to hear morewords of condemnation, they want this madness to stop.
Wilbert, Parliament is the House of Assembly and Senate. But in Zimbabwe each has majorities from different Parties yet must approve the same bill before it is assented into law by the President. In that case, Parliament is deadlocked, “….has (no) power and authority, …cannot even get a Police Commissioner to arrest murderers with all the evidence and witnesses”. Finaly, the Senate (Zanu majority), is the one that impeaches the President. It is demagogary on your part to say that “Parliament has the power it is just that THIS MDC parliament is useless”..
You do like to talk endlessly about nothing. What has parliament ever done and were blocked by the senate? Nothing.
We are talking about this rubbish COPAC draft; which the tyrant is now steam rolling through. There is no debate on this rubbish in the country’s media because there is no free media in Zimbabwe four years after the GNU. Who stopped MDC pushing meaningful media reforms?
It is the blind loyalty to failed leaders like Tsvangirai by idiots like you Yepec that is stifling meaningful debate in Zimbabwe. The nation has been drifting into dangerous waters; many innocent lives are at stake here; we can ill afford more of your idiotic nonsense!
I am not the one who ignorantly brought it into the discussion. “Parliament has no power it is just that ThIS MDC Parliament is useless”. Whose words were those Wilbert Mukori?
Come on you two guys, Yepec and Wilbert, keep on the fight for a carcass. It is laughable to read the nonsense these academics are addressing while without a clue of what it is all about. Knowledge and education can be powerful tools (Sibili) to use for while one of them appears knowledgeable, the other one is completely daft.
why doesn’t the Zimbabwe President visit those victims?
Elias Kanengoni and Edward Raradza should be skinned alive for the brutality they did when the elections are over next year. These two satanic,diabolic, brutalisers, killers, robbers, murderers should face the wrath. If these two are going to be pardonned, for sure, there will be hullaballooo in Zimbabwe. They should be skinned alive before the relatives of the deceased. Kuenda kuhondo kuzotsiva zvakaitwa neimbwa dzeZANU(PF) idzi zvingatova nane hazvo kana tikavaona vachifambazve muZimbabwe.
Hopefully Tsvangirai’s visit to the site of this atrocity will help repair the hearts of the relatives and friends of the people that were massacred. It may also send a message to at least certain people that this electoral brutality is totally unacceptable.
It blows my mind that the people responsible for this extreme (and sadly not isolated) act of brutality remain free. It is beyond comprehension. And what is unfortunately not beyond comprehension, is that it is very likely to occur again at the next election.
David you hit the nail on the head that; the extreme violence “is likely to occur again at the next elections”. Indeed one can even say the violence is certain to happen again. The relatives of the Chiweshe massacre would want to hear from Tsvangirai that those responsible for the murderers have been arrested but that is the only sure way to this scourge. Instead Tsvangirai will tell them he has just agreed to a proposed COPAC constitution in which Mugabe will be free to use all his durty tricks including using this party thugs and the Police to beat and murder his way to another election “victory”!
Prime Minister Tsvangirai took his eyes off the ball of bringing democratic change; he has been too busy chasing women and globe-trotting; and the nation will pay dearly for it.
Given the present set up of things in Zimbabwe and that it will be without the GPA after the Referendum, readers are privileged to see what Wilbert says. “…Tsvangirai will tell them he has just agreed to a proposed COPAC constitution in which Mugabe will be free to use all his durty tricks including using this party thugs and the Police to beat and murder his way to another election “victory”! Prime Minister Tsvangirai took his eyes off the ball of bringing democratic change, he has been too busy chasing women and globe-trotting, and the nation will pay dearly for it.” The quotation is not from the Herald or ZBC.
Yepec –
Many of us would like to believe that all will be resolved, and all will be well in Zimbabwe after we get our new constitution. We have thought similar things over and over during the past 30 years. And each time we have been duped. Each time we have been shocked to see Mugabe again resort to mass brutality and intimidation. Each time we blame Mugabe, and yet each time it is us being naive.
Wilbert is simply warning of this. He is warning the country to be vigilant, because we are again being duped. Mugabe has his people (military, militias, CIO, ZBC/TV) in place. The evidence strongly suggests he has every intention of murdering his way to an electoral victory. And as Wilbert points out, all he now needs is a new constitution in place, so he can unleash yet another brutal election campaign.
I absolutely agree on the need for vigilance, especially, against being duped by Mugabe. A simple question to you, as has been done on several occasions to Wilbert, is that what is the strategy for bringing democracy to Zimbabwe after the Referendum and the NO vote won or in other words moving forward?
The electorate is aware of being duped and is vigilant? There is no SADC, GPA (no need for reforms and a road map), GNU and the country reverted to the Lancaster House Constitutution without Amendment 19. What then Taylor?
Yepec
Roman Catholic Church member ask
for forgiven for “what I have done and what I have failed to do”. It is a novel
concept. If the next elections are NOT free and fair and the people are once
again denied their basic right to a meaningful say in the governance of the
country and the election process is once again marred by electoral malpractices
including rigging, intimidation and, God forbid, beatings and murderers. Prime
Minister Tsvangirai will not have any blood on his hands, which is true; still
he will be just as guilty of all the political outrage as if he had committed
the crimes himself. His crime will be one of omission.
The Prime Minister and his party
have had the last four years to push through the agreed democratic reforms and
yet not even one of these reforms has seen the light of day.
The Prime Minister and his party
had the one-in-a-life-time chance to write a new constitution that would put
Zimbabwe on a sound democratic foot once and for all. They gave in to Mugabe’s
dictates producing the COPAC rubbish now before us.
Not only did PM Tsvangirai fail
to do anything about implementing the reforms and produce a democratic
constitution, he is now lying that even without these key pillars in place the
country can still have free elections. There are millions of ordinary
Zimbabweans who believe him about free elections because simple people, prone
to believe what they are told. It is not a sin to be simple but now they are
going to pay dearly for it because the elections will not be free and fair.
The elections are NOT going to be
free and fair; that is already certain, what remains to be answered is they
will compare to the nightmare elections of 2008. The country’s public media
still remains strongly partisan and the voters’ roll still remains in its
chaotic shambles, for example; just two of many basic reforms which should have
been implemented at least two years in advance if there are to be free
elections.
Whilst you, Yepec, Tsvangirai and
all the other morons have accepted as a matter of course Mugabe’s dictates that
public media, Police and all the other democratic reforms are not negotiable.
You are boxed in and what you can and cannot do is confined by the six sides of
the box. Common sense dictates that if you are serious about bring about any
meaningful democratic change then you should not allow a tyrant dictate what
you can and cannot do! If you do, then clearly you have no common sense and, in
my book, if you have no common sense you must be a moron! You Yepec and Tsvangirai are therefore morons!
If you do not want to be a moron,
then stop behaving like one! People’s lives are at stake here and it would be
irresponsible to let people like you and Tsvangirai mislead the nation with you
stupid falsehoods!
ZIMBABWE VIGIL GIVES THE BEST DESCRIPTION EVER OF ZIMBABWE’S COPAC CONSTITUTION WRITING PROCESS.
The Vigil welcomes the peaceful
conclusion of the second Stakeholders’ Conference on the constitution – not
because we think it achieved anything but because it took place without the
feared violence and because it clears the way for the next hurdle in the Alice
in Wonderland caucus race. (Wikipedia definition of caucus race: a laborious but arbitrary and
futile activity; an activity that amounts to running around in a circle,
expending great energy but not accomplishing anything.)
Tsvangirai is visiting the scene in 2012 when he should have done so in 2008, the year atrocities are alleged to have occured. But as a foolish politician and coward at that, he decides to visit the scene of the alleged massacres four years after the event. How foolish and idiotic is that? Even the illiterate and daft can not be influenced to vote for such a coward who should have been with the victims at their time of need. The bottom line is the MDC leader should have been with the families of the victims at the relevant time and not to wait to do so during an election year. It is like he is attempting to bribe families of the victims to vote for him during the forthcoming elections.
Tsvangirai being a coward for which he is largely known was not too sure at the material time what lay ahead could not take the risk of visiting families of the victims, lest he too fell in the same predicament.
Which of the two of you is more coward than the other? On your side, you said you fought the “rhodies” but hide among their cousins or might even have them for your next neighbours. You should be ashamed of yourself but given what you say, shame is not part of your emotions.
Furthermore, you cannot say in which war zone you fought for fear of being discovered that you are lying. What a coward? It is known that you are fake given that you are fond of profanities on private parts (zvinonyadzisira). For example, “duzvi rambuya yayo, duzvi yayo, mhata MDC iyi etc”and, also, grammatically wrong Shona. Why do you not say “we” cowards?
You are off topic Yepec. If you consider Chimbwido Warvet is a coward so be it but one thing is clear that you are not addressing the above article which is clearly the subject matter. I will not be drawn or diverted by your profenities from commenting on Tsvangirai’s visit to the beareved families four years after the event for this is the matter at stake here. Quite frankly families of victims of the alleged massacres would have needed both financial and moral support from the MDC at the material time not just a mere visit which to all intents and purposes is designed to promote his political fortunes. For me this is what is of paramount importance.