Pertinent Questions On Approach To Gukurahundi - Mutebuka

Brighton Mutebuka, a UK-based Zimbabwean political analyst, says President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s efforts to address the Gukurahundi atrocities will fall short unless comprehensive measures are taken. 

These include ensuring proper justice, healing, honesty, specialist support (such as counselling), dignified burials, accountability, issuance of identity documents, estate resolution, and fair compensation for victims and their families. Wrote Mutebuka:

Is ED’s Current Attempt At ‘Burying The Ghost’ Of Gukurahundi A Credible Attempt At Addressing The Subject?

1. When historians finally sit down to mull over ED’s legacy, one of the central themes that will emerge about his rule is sincerity/genuineness.

2. Thus, while it is clear that resolving the contentious Gukurahundi atrocities is the right thing to do, there are huge question marks over the HOW part of it.

3. At present, we are seeing ED and his regime all over the relevant processes – seeking to dictate and control events.

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4. Presumably, ED intends to bring lasting closure for the victims by affording them proper justice, healing, honesty, and specialist support, such as counselling, proper burial, accountability, the provision of identity documents, the winding up of Estates and compensation, amongst other things.

5. Anything short of the above will not hack it – and will prolong the suffering of victims and stall genuine attempts at healing, the achievement of lasting peace, and nation-building.

6. Having waited for so long, the victims deserve a credible process. As to what is credible or not – this can only be adequately addressed via a genuine consultative process involving victims and their family members.

7. It is respectfully that ED and the State should not be anywhere near that process. This is because they face accusations of being the perpetrators in the first place.

8. Their active involvement leaves them open to charges of creating an intimidatory atmosphere – which defeats the very objective that is ostensibly being sought.

9. In fact, given the prevailing political environment in Zimbabwe at the moment, (and ED & his regime’s central role in it), which is more or less marked by the very toxic, brutal & predatory politics that underpinned Gukurahundi, there are compelling reasons to ask whether or not it is appropriate for ED and his regime to superintend over this process.

10. There is something extraordinarily jarring/farcical about this taking place in an environment where more, not less rank authoritarianism is taking place – and new and frightening levels of repression are the order of the day – meaning a piling list of even more, not less victims that a future government will need to address.

11. There are two schools of thought that I propose to share. The first one is that, given the sensitivity and importance of the subject – and given the mistakes that were committed through ramming the Unity Accord down ZAPU’s throat in 1988, there is no point in proceeding with the current initiative in isolation, prior to addressing the current political environment & recoiling from the current path of egregious human rights violations.

12. The second one is that there is no point in proceeding with the current process if it is not independent of the state and ED’s shadow as it will not adequately address or meet the needs of the victims.

13. In fact, I stand to be corrected but, as presently constituted, it is likely to be viewed as a rubber-stamping exercise lacking the buy-in of the victims.

14. If my take is correct, then it will have to be redone properly sometime in the future once optimum conditions have been achieved.

Conclusion

This is a project of great historical and national importance. It presents a sore point/festering wound/injustice/fault line that has acted as a formidable barrier in moulding a cohesive, stable, peaceful and enduring post-independent state.

There currently does not appear to be a genuine appetite to address the grievances and fissures which marked the fault lines that were inherited at independence.

Indeed many in the Matabeleland provinces still continue to complain bitterly about marginalisation, prejudice and discrimination by the nation-state.

That needs to be addressed on an urgent basis – and included as part of credible attempts at addressing the troubling legacy of Gukurahundi – which should additionally be linked to wider efforts at establishing lasting peace in Zimbabwe.

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