EMMERSON Mnangagwa, long accused of being one of the chief architects of Gukurahundi, waded into a political storm on Monday after telling a newspaper that the 1980s genocide was a “closed chapter”.

In an extraordinary attack, the MDC led by Welshman Ncube said the Defence Minister’s comments were “an insult to the victims of Zanu PF’s grand plan of exterminating the Ndebele people”.

The opposition ZAPU, whose former leader Joshua Nkomo was forced into exile by President Robert Mugabe’s death squads in 1983, said Mnangagwa’s comments were “provocative”, adding that they were “tantamount to a criminal acquitting himself even before he has been arrested and tried”.

In an interview with the state-run Chronicle newspaper, Mnangagwa said a “unity accord” signed in 1987 between Mugabe’s ZANU and Nkomo’s ZAPU to end the massacre of more than 20,000 people in Matabeleland and Midlands should have been the last word on the matter.

“We don’t want to undermine efforts by our national leaders to reunite the people. If we try to open healed wounds by discussing such issues, we will be undermining and failing to recognise the statesmanship exhibited by President Mugabe and Dr Nkomo when they signed the unity accord in 1987,” Mnangagwa said.

“The people who very vocal on the Gukurahundi have selfish agendas that they are pushing. They want to divide the nation by making unfounded allegations.”

The comments touched off a furious row, with the MDC and ZAPU both issuing separate statements to condemn Mnangagwa, who was State Security Minister when Mugabe sent a North Korean-trained army taskforce to Matabeleland under the pretext of hunting down less than two dozen dissident supporters of Nkomo who refused to put down arms after Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980.

“The MDC believes it is not for perpetrators of the genocide to tell the victims to forgive and forget about what happened to them. It is a sad irony to note that those that are pronouncing closure of the chapter are the same people that presided over the recruitment and training of operatives for the massacre of our people,” the party’s deputy secretary general Moses Mzila Ndlovu said.

He added: “No amount of attacks on those that search for truths and call for justice for the victims of this massacre will wash away the blood of our people from the hands of Mnangwaga and his group.

“The party takes Mnangwagwa’s assertion as an insult to the victims of Zanu PF’s grand plan of exterminating the Ndebele people. We believe that this is a very insensitive and deliberate attack on the people of Matabeleland and the Midlands who painfully suffered.”

The MDC said “reconciliation can’t and shouldn’t be imposed on people”, adding: “The victims must be given a platform to fully disclose how they were brutally tortured, their relatives mercilessly butchered and how they want the issue resolved.”

In a separate statement, ZAPU spokesman Methuseli Moyo said: “We find Mnangagwa’s comments about Gukurahundi provocative, irresponsible and not fit to be uttered by someone who knows for sure that 20,000 innocent people lost their lives at the hands of the Fifth Brigade.

“What makes his remarks more provocative is that they come from someone who played a key role in the execution of the genocide, and has never even bothered to say ‘I am sorry’ to the people of Matabeleland and the Midlands.”

ZAPU’s new leader, Dumiso Dabengwa, who was detained by Mugabe’s government for four years in 1982 despite being acquitted of treason charges, announced in May 2009 that the party was withdrawing from the 1987 accord, although some senior leaders have elected to remain in Zanu PF.

Moyo added: “Mnangagwa needs to know that John Nkomo, Simon Khaya Moyo, Cain Mathema, Naison Ndlovu and other ex-Zapu leaders still in Zanu PF are doing so in their individual capacities. They have no legitimacy whatsoever to represent anyone in Matabeleland or in ZAPU, not even their own families.

“ZAPU is never for retribution but truth, compensation, healing and reconciliation. What Mnangagwa refers to as national healing is just a futile Zanu PF project to hoodwink people. Sadly for them, no one has been hoodwinked.”