Zimbabwe’s Presidential Spokesperson, George Charamba has said that Gukurahundi was a conflict with casualties on both sides.
Charamba was responding to questions from The Standard’s Obey Mayiti who asked him if the recent announcements by the government mean that it is finally acknowledging that there were atrocities in Midlands and Matabeleland.
Said Charamba:
There was conflict, which claimed lives and you noticed I never used words such as atrocities because if you are true to history, you will know that in a conflict situation atrocities do happen on both sides of the conflict.
We do have quite a number of people who died or suffered at the hands of the dissidents.
We also have quite a number of people who are said to have suffered at the hands of security forces then.
Once you acknowledge that there is a conflict situation then necessarily there is some suffering, which is what motivated the former president to describe it as a moment of madness. So it cannot be a new acknowledgement.
It isn’t, but what has happened is that government has awoken up to its responsibilities in dealing with that question frontally
The government recently announced that those affected by Gukurahundi can now exhume and rebury of victims of Gukurahundi. It also said the facilitation of birth certificates of victims affected by Gukurahundi is a priority.