PRESS STATEMENT
May 2, 2011
RE: MUGABE’S PLANNED COMMITTEE ON GUKURAHUNDI
ZAPU is very grateful to all brave Zimbabweans and members of the progressive world who continue to risk life and limb in condemning the atrocities committed by the ZANU-PF regime on our members in the 1980s, otherwise known as Gukurahundi massacres. We pay special tribute to heroes in the form of artists, priests and politicians whose only armoury is made up of paint and brush sticks as well as white collars and holy pulpits whose fight against a brutal regime has defied leg irons, guns and the darkest dungeons of Zimbabwe’s Rhodesian made jails. They have protested loudly about the irony of having the perpetrators of these heinous crimes against humanity continue to serve in high public offices. Some have even shifted the battleground to cabinet, a few metres from the building where Gukurahundi was planned and prosecuted.
In a recent cabinet meeting, it is reported that the Gukurahundi genocide caused a cabinet split along regional and political lines. ZAPU is shocked that men and women charged with running the affairs of our great country, Zimbabwe, are unable to comprehend that this issue, if left unresolved, has the potential of dividing the country with disastrous consequences. To begin with, all those who have prominently led protestations against Gukurahundi belong to the same ethnic group and have suffered the same fate; arrests, torture and jail. Equally telling is that those harassing and arresting them, who happen to be the custodians of prison keys, baton sticks and leg irons, belong to the same ethnic group that perpetrated the genocide. A clear case in point is that of a cabinet Minister responsible for healing who is not only arrested for seeking healing and reconciliation, but is treated by the police as a common criminal. During this unfortunate episode, a senior police officer gains prominence for all the wrong reasons, by dumping his civil service badge for political grandstanding. A simple check of this officer’s ethnicity may explain his motives.
It is, therefore unfortunate that the officer’s behaviour is manifesting itself in cabinet where politicians are being divided along regional lines when the issue of Gukurahundi is mentioned. ZAPU welcomes the threat by President Mugabe to set up a team to discuss the Gukurahundi issue but would like to warn the government that any such team will not achieve anything without the participation of the victims. It is for that reason that ZAPU stands ready to engage with any inclusive, sincere and honest efforts by Zimbabweans to find closure to this matter. ZAPU argues all patriotic Zimbabweans to support our efforts to resolve this matter urgently before those among us who participated, directed and executed the genocide die of natural causes, old age or both. ZAPU also wants to bring closure to this matter urgently before some individuals who participated and supported Gukurahundi are mistaken for sheep when in actual fact they are wolves in sheep clothes. These wolves, now living and pretending to be looking after the surviving herd, whose mothers and fathers they helped butcher in cold blood, are not even ashamed to declare Bulawayo as home to the most uncivilised, uncouth and savage people in the country. This after violence broke out in Bulawayo ahead of their choreographed and stage managed feel-good-get-together disguised as a congress. This is despite the fact that violence twice the magnitude of Bulawayo happened in many parts of the country without any name calling of these commandos, codenamed Voice of Democracy (VODs).
While we are shocked by the label branded on Bulawayo, we are not surprised at all, because those purveyors of that lie have a strong ZANU-PF DNA that dates back to the Gukurahundi massacre when they were party officials and even participated in an attempted assassination of our former President, Dr Joshua Nkomo in Bindura during Gukurahundi. ZAPU calls upon all Zimbabweans to unite and shun violence which began with the crushing of the Nhari rebellion, perfected during pungwes against villagers labelled as sell-outs before graduating into Gukurahundi in the 1980s.
Zimbabweans can easily see history repeating itself with the savagery and brutality with which the Mudzuri rebellion was crushed. The coming months will be crucial as purported sell-outs will be hunted and hounded with brutal precision. We also call upon all Zimbabweans to join our struggle to reclaim our properties that the ZANU-PF regime forcibly grabbed from us and are being plundered by their political protégés masquerading as a genuine opposition party whose only claim to excellence is copying ZAPU’s idea of Council of elders in their structures to the extent of even copying the age limit, although this seems to have been motivated by the need to create a retirement home for their incompetent leader in a deal between him and the ambitious young Turks.
Thank you
Mso Ndlovu (Director of Information, Publicity and Marketing-Northern Region)
|