The National Peace and Reconciliation Commission (NPRC) or Gukurahundi Commission is set to compile information on what happened during the Gukurahundi era starting in March.
Commissioner Leslie Ncube said that the Commission is intent on everyone in the affected communities to participate. Said Ncube:
People in communities know the mass graves that are in their areas….We will be listening to you to lead the process at that local level.
Come to the meetings with a plan of what you want to happen because we will be using participatory methods; we don’t want to plan for people. Our job is not in the office – it’s on the ground because this is where the killings allegedly happened.
Gukurahundi is a term used to refer to disturbances in Matabeleland and Midlands in the 1980s which resulted in the death of an estimated 20,000 Ndebele people.
It was carried out by the North Korean trained 5th Brigade which was an elite regiment of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces. Gukurahundi is derived from a Shona language term which loosely translates to “the early rain which washes away the chaff before the spring rains”.