Mnangagwa launches Gukurahundi Community outreach programme
By Staff Reporter
President Emmerson Mnangagwa says Zimbabweans should “not to dwell on the shadows of yesterday” as he launched the Gukurahundi Community Engagement Outreach Programme at State House in Bulawayo on Sunday.
Blamed for his active role in the atrocities between 1982 and 1987, Mnangagwa said the massacre of an estimated 20 000 innocent civilians, according to independent estimates, in Matabeleland and Midlands provinces by armed forces was a manifestation of divisions imposed on tribes by the nation’s “detractors”.
Mnangagwa, as state security minister during the dark period, is fingered as one of the chief architects of Gukurahundi atrocities.
In his Sunday address, Mnangagwa urged Zimbabweans “not to dwell on the shadows of yesterday, but to focus on the future of our country.”
He added, “A future where the scars of yesterday no longer fester, but become stepping stones on the path to a stronger, more unified Zimbabwe. A nation can only be built by a unified people.”
“History records that all internal divisions amongst us as a people have been instigated by our detractors in various guises through generations,” Mnangagwa said, adding, “It is our detractors who worked tirelessly to pit one tribe against the other during the colonial era.
“These oppressors sought to sow seeds of division amongst liberation struggle fighters and within communities.
“Their interference and machinations were designed to divide us and consequently created our post-independence conflicts.
“We are aware that the same forces have not abandoned their ultimate goal of thwarting the realisation of our determination to remain as united Zimbabweans.”
The controversial community outreach programme is being led by traditional chiefs in Matabeleland under an arranged government process.
It is ostensibly meant to give survivors the chance to relive their experiences and allow them to give their views on how the bury the dark chapter.
But activists, who favour an independent truth telling process instead, have rubbished the government process saying survivors will not be free to express themselves before their own transgressors.
The so-called Operation Gukurahundi was waged by the now defunct Five Brigade under the guise of tracking down a handful dissidents who were causing terror in affected provinces.
