A MASS grave believed to contain the remains of up to 60 victims of the 1980s Gukurahundi massacres has been discovered at a Lupane school.
Pupils playing football at the grounds of St Paul Secondary School stumbled on human bones sticking out of the ground.
National Healing Minister Moses Mzila Ndlovu visited Lupane last Friday for talks with school authorities.
He told New Zimbabwe.com last night: “Villagers told me that St Paul and several other local schools were used as detention points by the Fifth Brigade.
“Dozens of people were detained, interrogated and executed before their bodies were dumped in mass graves dug up by the detainees.
“The grave is roughly 5x5 metres and locals told me there could be anything between 30-60 people buried there.”
He said the mass grave was uncovered after the ground caved in at two points of the football pitch, exposing the horrific scene to pupils playing kick-about.
School authorities have temporarily refilled the graves and the minister says he will be asking Cabinet to agree on a programme of reburials on a wider scale across Matabeleland and the Midlands.
Human rights groups say up to 20,000 innocent civilians are buried in mass graves and disused mines in the two regions after President Robert Mugabe deployed the Fifth Brigade to deal with what he said was a dissident menace after some liberation war combatants refused to put down their arms at independence in 1980.
The Fifth Brigade, formed in 1981 and disbanded in 1988, is accused of indiscriminate killings and torture of supporters of Mugabe’s main political rival at the time -- ZAPU leader Joshua Nkomo.
Mzila Ndlovu, the MDC MP for Bulilima, said: “I will take up the issue with my colleagues in the Organ on National Healing Sekai Holland [MDC-T] and John Nkomo [Zanu PF].
“The local community must say where and how they want the reburials to occur. But first I would wish that the Cabinet can reach an agreement on a national programme that can be put in place to deal with the specific crimes of the Fifth Brigade.
“We need to grow confidence in the ordinary person, who really has this pain in themselves that you can’t be talking about reconciliation and healing without a clear programme that shows you want to heal the nation.
“We must allow our people to tell the story as they saw and lived through it, followed by reburials which should come as a package of national healing.”
Mzila Ndlovu said before reburials occur, there was need for “a lot of preparatory work” which would include "deploying counsellors and psychologists who can move in and help communities cope with their trauma”.
He added: “Once the government accepts reburial, we should begin a programme of forensic exhumations in a way that is different to the clumsy and criminal way in which the Mt Darwin mass graves were handled.
“Local communities must be allowed to decide where and how people are reburied – whether individually or whether they want to create a single shrine where all victims would be laid to rest."
But Mzila Ndlovu admits it may be impossible to get Zanu PF ministers and Mugabe to sign up to a programme of mass exhumations and reburials for political reasons.
“We need to reach agreement to move forward. I want to say the attitude of Zanu PF people is shocking. The attitudes are hostile, which shows a lack of willingness to deal with Gukurahundi,” he said.
Many of the ills experienced by the region including company closures and stalled development projects, he argued, had their genesis in Gukurahundi.
“You cannot solve Matabeleland issues without confronting and dealing with Gukurahundi because that is the source of all problems. It was not just mass murder but a broad agenda which included economic marginalisation and cultural imperialism.”
The minister commended the "brave" villagers who had spoken to him and given insight into the mass graves in the presence of his police and Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) minders.