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Kwinjeh's false recollection of Zimbabwe's history of violence
By Faith
Dube and Brilliant Mhlanga
WRITING on New Zimbabwe.com
on September 17, 2008, Grace Kwinjeh sought to chronicle the excesses
of Robert Mugabe’s tyranny. Of the exiles who now call foreign
cities home, Kwinjeh says “many are victims recorded from the
early days of the MDC formation in 2000, to victims of the recent wave
of political violence”. She goes on in that vein.
There are many reasons that gave impetus to this response, most of which will be enunciated below. Grave among all is that Kwinjeh seems to be inspired by a wild and dangerous view that Zimbabwe's history and everything else starts from around 1999/2000.
It gets worse with her blind approach in wilfully entangling it with her newly discovered Rwandan enigma. Is it not interesting to note that in Zimbabwe we have often failed to acknowledge the reality of a genocide that Zimbabwe faced in the period;1982 to 1988? Yes, the one and only genocide to take place in modern day Southern Africa: Gukurahundi? Mind, modern day Southern Africa!
In fairness, Kwinjeh did raise some interesting issues on the power sharing agreement signed between Robert Mugabe, Morgan Tsvangirai and Professor Arthur Mutambara.
However, it is the significance and magnitude of the perception of brutality by Mugabe across the national spectrum that will forever make us fail to converge at some point of consensus.
The violence and murder meted out on her few comrades by the Zanu PF regime will never be justified or made justifiable by any measure of agreements reached by the politicians. Yes, it provokes the core of human consciousness. It also demands that the victims she cited meet with the perpetrator on the parapet of justice.
Our point of departure with Kwinjeh (and many others) is that they tend to focus on the brutality of Zanu PF and its callousness based on a short stint, from early 2000 there about and the use of her few identifiable scars.
No Grace!! The regime's brutality goes beyond early 2000, and the victims are quantifiable and of course the numbers are far much more than those few cases you highlighted.
The new crisis that Zimbabwe will have after this discourse will be on the perception of our national problems across the national divide. There are far much more widows from Matabeleland today who have been victims of Mugabe's regime, most of them left to forage for themselves around the same time Tsvangirai and many of his MDC cadres were card-waving Zanu PF activists.
The people of Matabeleland have scars that date back to the immediate post-independence period. Of course, the physical scars may have healed by now or have been a permanent feature for quite some time to such an extent that we have learned to co-exist with them as normal physical attributes.
It is the internal scars that continue to haunt some us up to date. In as much as violence and murder of any degree can never be justifiable, early 2000 to now as compared to the previous decades is not the worst ever stint of Mugabe’s brutality.
The regime has been brutal; they murdered, raped, maimed and committed genocide, but the magnitude and significance of all this goes beyond year 2000!
Or, by assumption, Kwinjeh meant that the 1982-1988 violence is now an archival issue with no modern significance in the context of human rights?
Maybe it is now an academic issue and a case study for human rights and development scholars?
If that's what Zimbabweans, democrats, dictators and fighters alike believe, then we must say, 'farewell to innocence'.
Interestingly, Kwinjeh says she will show Tsvangirai her scars upon meeting him. She adds that she still has some identifiable widows that are mentioned in her article. How lucky!!
We have tried in vain for the past two decades to interest Mugabe to visit the mass graves of his more than 20,000 victims. He has never been interested in meeting the widows and the offspring who are products of those wild episodes of rape of innocent young girls and women in Matabeleland.
If we may seek your indulgence Grace; allow us to send through you a message to Tsvangirai, since you have access and are able dine with those at the apex of our politics: Tell him there are victims from well before the MDC was formed, and they deserve justice too.
It would be advisable for all these “democrats” and self-proclaimed fighters (Grace Kwinjeh and others) to tell their leaders that our memories live on! They should also tell them that to the down-trodden of Matabeleland, the power-sharing deal means nothing except that we are back to the old ways of surviving.
Zimbabwe's history has to be re-written. We are confident it will be written and our story will be told in the fullness of time. We wish to remind Kwinjeh that her attempt to draw parallels between Rwanda's experiences and Zimbabwe did not jell. If anything it was a case of a badly written piece seeking to narrate the course of warped ideas.
In brief we also notice that Kwinjeh could not grasp that what exists in Rwanda is not a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). Instead they have the Gacaca; participatory justice as a form of transitional justice. Please note; that it has the components of; a) Justice, b) Punishment c) Truth revelation, d) Community participation, and hopefully, e) Reconciliation!
However, that creates several dilemmas, for example, how do you tell the truth when you may be incarcerated for thirty odd years or so after telling the 'truth'? How do you reconcile with one who murdered your father, raped and killed your mother and children? How do you build democracy and democratic culture in such a polarised society? How do you live with the murderer in the same neighbourhood; the one you saw committing all these heinous crimes? Gacaca was the only alternative albeit with difficulties.
It might be worth emphasising that in Rwanda, as was the case with Zimbabwe, the government fomented it and executed it. The genocide in Rwanda, like in Zimbabwe, involved the state -- government officials worked with ordinary masses who either participated as killers or as informers. To understand the role played by the masses in Zimbabwe, please watch this video produced by BBC in 1983 and reproduced here; (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9t-ft-kr2o).
From the clip one can easily see the role played by the people in creating the leadership they deserve, the same leadership that turned around and started hacking them. Given this background, you cannot leave justice out. Gacaca ends this year, hopefully if all goes right. But in Zimbabwe the future of national healing remains doubtful.
It might be necessary to understand that the political logic of a TRC is that there is some modicum of justice. It is a purely political matter after looking at all realities, and often after a negotiated agreement. It is just a political cover up to allow life to continue. It may also be found necessary to avoid vendettas as can be gleaned in the recently signed Zimbabwean deal.
In a TRC the assumption is that the crimes that would have been committed are essentially of a political nature, therefore an enabling political environment becomes necessary hence the need to be tackled and handled using a pseudo-political-legal approach with little legality. Otherwise, anything else may be seen as endless retribution in the name of justice.
That's your brief Grace in terms of parallels!
Since Grace is wishing to understand Rwanda's enigma; we refer her to the works of Mahmood Mamdani, When Victims Become Killers: Nativism and the Genocide in Rwanda (2001); Reconciliation Without Justice (1996; From Conquest to Consent as the Basis of State formation: Reflections on Rwanda (1996).
We are convinced that these few books, if diligently read, will help in opening her mind to the vagaries of the politics of perpetrator mentality and zombie approach to reality. They may help her avoid celebrating a falsified history.
Faith
Dube is a Bulawayo based human rights activist. He is also working with
Mthwakazi Youth Movement. Brilliant Mhlanga is an Academic & Human
Rights Activist. He is currently based at the University of Westminster,
in London. E-mail: bsigabadem@yahoo.co.uk
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