Why Shamuyarira makes me sick

Why Shamuyarira makes me sick

• Shamuyarira under fire over Gukurahundi

• Jonathan Moyo: Which is which?

• Jonathan Maphenduka: Who are the real tribalists

• Geoffrey Nyarota: Making political capital out of a national tragedy

• Kuthula Matshazi: It's not fiction, Ndebeles are marginalised

• Khanyisela Moyo: Ndebele minority needs constitutional protection

• Sam Sipepa Nkomo: A case for provincialisation in Zimbabwe

• Kevin Eagle and Gregory Stanton: Genocide in Zimbabwe

• Lance Guma: Mkhwananzi's mix of sense and non-sense

• George Mkhwananzi: Ndebeles and Zimbabwe national leadership

• Lance Guma: Lessons drenched in blood

• Black murder, white murder

• Dumisani Zifa Ndlovu: 'Mnangagwa has Matabele blood on his hands'

• Mnangagwa, Dabengwa clash over Mat massacres

• Mugabe faces class lawsuit over massacres

• Honour of journalist who first exposed Mat killings

By Mandlenkosi Ncube

I HAVE been greatly disturbed by the reckless and careless utterances by Nathan Shamuyarira around the subject of the Gukurahundi atrocities.

Shamuyarira should not downplay the atrocities and justify the killings by implying that there was a war situation in the country.

If so, can he tell us which Act of Parliament and when it was debated to pronounce the country to be in a state of war?

Gukurahundi was conceived in Robert Mugabe's mind long before Independence as a way of consolidating power. Six months (October 1980) after attaining independence, Mugabe signed an agreement with Kim II Sung of North Korea to train a crack team that would not fall under army structures and would report directly to him.

Enos Nkala (a disgrace to the people of Matabeleland) followed a month later (Nov 1980) in rallies in Bulawayo promising Zapu supporters that Zanu would deliver blows to them. In August 1981, 106 North Koreans came to train 3500 recruits from the Tongogara Camp which was mainly Zanla (Zanu's military wing) dominated. Zipra (Zapu's military wing) recruits were not allowed to join this outfit. Their training was specialised in torture tactics and was announced complete in September 1982 by then Defence Minister Sydney Sekeramayi. It was headed by one Perence Shiri now rewarded with a job as the Air Force of Zimbabwe commander.

The 5 Brigade's formation was questioned by the late Vice President Joshua Nkomo but to his shock, he was told in a burst of fury that it was there to destroy him and his supporters if they ever dared challenge Mugabe's rule.

With this background, it's evident that Gukurahundi had long been in Mugabe's evil deck of cards. All he was looking for was an to excuse to unleash his killing machine in Matabeleland and Midlands which were a threat to his one party state agenda.

This excuse he got by the "discovery" of two arms caches on Zapu-owned farms. Like all the other caches to date, this was blown out of proportion and exaggerated by the state media. Repeated efforts by Joshua Nkomo to see and confirm the nature and magnitude of the weapons were in vain, remember Zipra was Russian-sponsored so their weapons would have been easily identified.

Arms that couldn't even fill a pick-up truck were pronounced as enough to take on a whole country. Besides, what was sinister about an arms cache in a country that was coming from war, weren't there other caches discovered in Manicaland and Mashonaland Central, what was so special about the the ones on Zapu farms that they deserved the unleashing of the 5 Brigade? I wonder. This just shows that Mugabe had his own evil agenda -- and that agenda was ethnic cleansing.

Dissidents in the three provinces of Matabeleland South, Matabeleland North and the Midlands were a reality, but what I fail to understand is how the 5 Brigade had to be brought in to deal with the 100 or so dissidents when Zimbabwe has a professional army, an effective intelligence service and police force.

My reasoning is that they were not after the dissidents in the first place, their real agenda was Mugabe's plot to wipe out Nkomo's support base, or beat them into submission. Mugabe clearly stated this in April 1983 when he said, "we eradicate them, we don't differentiate when we fight because we can't tell who is a dissident and who is not".

Good Lord, how can a sensible man say he has problems differentiating between a foetus in its mother's womb with a dissident to the point that they bayoneted open the mother's womb to expose the still moving foetus as so painfully documented in the report by the CCJP? What evil!

The Zimbabwe National Army which Mugabe side-stepped to put together the 5 Brigade wiped out the Renamo bandits in Mozambique in the twinkle of an eye. It was the same army that was applauded for their effectiveness in consolidating both Laurent Kabila and later his son Joseph's power in the DRC, and yet somebody tells me they couldn't contain the dissidents until the intervention of the Unity Accord six years later. This madness was prolonged so that Mugabe and his cronies could quench their evil desires of ethnic cleansing.

Shamuyarira tries to neutralize and portray the situation as having been a war between the Ndebeles and the Shonas by saying that, "it was not the Ndebeles only who were killed in this genocide, but also some Shona speaking and European farmers".

The fact, however, is that over 90% of the estimated 20 000 people murdered were innocent Ndebele civilians. Shamuyarira hypocritically tries to hide behind the idea that the 5 Brigade was protecting the white farmers in the area. How convenient. May I ask, where are those farmers you were protecting then Nathan?

Shamuyarira is a pathetic and shameless liar. The 5 Brigade was not deployed there to protect anybody, they were there for ethnic cleansing. Gukurahundi was not a war between the Ndebeles and the Shonas as he would like to mislead everybody. The majority of the Shona people in Zimbabwe actually sympathise with the ordeal the Ndebeles went through at the hands of Mugabe and his evil batch of cronies, they have little knowledge as to what happened then, thanks to a good job by Geoff Nyarota and his team in the state media then.

Shamuyarira also has the cheek to mislead the world by trotting out the big lie that "we killed vana Gwesele in my province". That, of course, is a blue lie.

Richard Gwesela or Otshad, as we knew him when he was a grinding mill attendant in Zhombe in his earlier years, is alive and well down in South Africa, and does occasionally visit. I wonder who sponsored him? Killing one of the many innocent young men and parading him as Gwesela is not only misleading but also criminal.

Shamuyarira further says the 5 Brigade was "doing their job to protect the people". What a skewed way of doing it -- pregnant girls being ripped open their wombs as happened in Neshango line in Nyamandlovu area, on 3 Feb 1983. What about the events at Khumbula School in Phumula 5km north east of Phumula Mission where seven villagers were made to dig their own grave and were then executed at close range while others were made to dance and sing over their graves praising Mugabe? What about the massacre at Cewale River of 62 innocent civilians? Did I mention Bhalagwe? Nathan, who exactly were you protecting?

To evaluate Shamuyarira's protection campaign, can he tell us how over 20 000 civilians against a feeble number of dissidents got killed? What sort of protection was that? Who was being protected?

Shamuyarira further says there is no need for compensation for the victims. Can I draw him back to his government's commitment to the UN in 1996, where they agreed that "pursuant to the signing of the Unity Accord in 1987, (the government) has decided to compensate all families with missing relatives regardless of whether there were court proceedings concerning the disappearance?" Why is the government backtracking on this initiative especially considering the War Victims Compensation Act was there for those who suffered in the 70s war?

There are some who couldn't get death certificates for their breadwinners meaning that they couldn't claim their benefits from various institutions because the system would not allow them to state the cause of death, and you say there is no need for compensation? Plainly, I'm disgusted by Shamuyarira's insensitivity

Shamuyarira says he has no regrets. Considering all this, I can only say he is a sick individual -- a Gukurahundi denier.

Mandlenkosi Ncube writes from Bulawayo and can be contacted at mandlancube123@yahoo.co.uk

To learn more about the atrocities, please visit GUKURAHUNDI.ORG or CLICK HERE to download the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace report

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