THE people of Matebeleland should focus on developing the region instead of continuing to nurse an abiding anger over the 1980s Gukurahundi atrocities, the European Union’s chief envoy to Harare has said.
The EU delegation moved its senior staff to Bulawayo for a week beginning January 30 as part of a programme aimed at “engaging with local economic, social and political actors”.
Officials said the move would help “assert publicly and clearly (the mission’s) commitment to the development of the region as well as to seek insights and ideas for the future prospects of engagement in Matabeleland.”
However, mission chief Aldo Dell'Ariccia’s remarks about the sensitive Gukurahundi issue are unlikely to help strengthen that engagement.
According to the Bulawayo-based Sunday News Dell'Ariccia said the issue of “Gukurahundi has become so much of a tired song in Matabeleland”.
“We should focus more on developing the region rather than continuously blaming underdevelopment and marginalisation on the issue.
“People should look ahead and let not history hinder the process and prospect of developing the region.”
Rights groups say some 20,000 civilians were killed in the Midlands and Matebeleland provinces when the then Prime Minister Robert Mugabe deployed a North Korea-trained army brigade to put down what officials described as a dissident menace in the regions.
Mugabe has not apologised for the killings, only describing them as a moment of madness. Again, the findings of a commission of inquiry he established to investigate the issue were never made public or acted upon.
Still, Dell'Ariccia said continuing anger and frustration over the issue should not be allowed to hold the region back adding it was time to look to the future.
“When one is moving forward there is no need to continuously be looking back where you are coming from as it has the danger that you may stumble and fall and in the process fail to reach your intended destination,” he said.
“People should not dwell more on their past as there are no prospects of living in it again. The past should not be a barrier to development.”
Mugabe’s Zanu PF party remains divided over the issue with some leaders describing it as a “closed chapter” and “irreversible history” while others insist that victims should be compensated and those responsible for the atrocities made to account.