The former Deputy Minister in the Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Technology Development, Godfrey Gandawa said that President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s ‘deal’ with chiefs in handling Gukurahundi is akin to sweeping the atrocities under the carpet.
Posting on his Twitter handle @DrGGandawa on Monday morning, the self-exiled former ZANU PF official called for transparency and accountability in dealing with the massacre of an estimated 20 000 citizens mainly from the Ndebele ethnic group by a North Korean-trained Zimbabwe National Army (ZNA) brigade in the 1980s. Wrote Gandawa:
Gukurahundi cannot be swept under the carpet by striking deals with chiefs. What is required is truth, justice and then reconciliation, not so much who leads exhumations and reburials. Those who killed must be subject to a process while victims should be compensated.
The present process, which does not include any truth-telling on the part of the perpetrators, many of whom are alive, is a charade that only serves to tamper with crime scenes. Further, the victims and their families are not being given an opportunity to be heard.
he National Peace and Reconciliation Commission is wholly incapable of delivering for the simple reason that it has no commitment to truth-telling or delivering justice for the affected. The authorities are conducting a synthetic process in the hope of an organic outcome.
What is particularly offensive to the victims is that Mnangagwa, who is accused of playing a key role in the killings as State Security minister, is purporting to preside over atrocities in which he is an alleged perpetrator. His involvement strips the process of credibility.