On the 23rd of August 2023, eligible Zimbabweans from all walks of life cast their ballots in a crucial election with the highest stakes since independence. Many candidates vying for power published their manifestos during spirited campaign rallies. The promises made to the electorate could outnumber the breams of Kariba Dam. From spaghetti roads in urban areas to skyscrapers in rural areas, all manner of pie in the sky were dangled before spellbound audiences, by demagogues hoping to get into elected office. Yet there is one thorny issue that many of them craftily avoided.
The issue predates Zimbabwe’s independence in terms of motives and blueprints for execution. It is a genocide aptly called Gukurahundi (the rain that washes away the chaff) after the Fifth Brigade that carried out the atrocities. Many articles and reports have been produced to give a blood-chilling catalogue of human evil. Some survivors and eyewitnesses of the mindless atrocities still live in fear and hopeless resignation. Traumatized and ignored, their plight remains dire with most of them condemned to mere existence and untimely death. An unknown number of Gukurahundi victims were subjected to state-enforced disappearance, never to be seen again. Their children are practically disenfranchised as citizens without identity documents.
Yet the perpetrators of Gukurahundi are not only free but actually thriving. When their Korean trained Fifth Brigade was disbanded, they were integrated into regular army units and some traded their fatigues for designer suits, to occupy key positions in parastatals and government departments. To reward them for spilling innocent blood, the ZANU-led government gave each of them free farms, army pension, civil servant salary plus looting opportunities via opaque tenders. Some even grabbed shares in foreign owned firms upon hounding the original shareholders into relinquishing control. Those who were war veterans before serving in the 5th Brigade also led in claiming war victim compensation packages which crashed the Zimbabwe dollar in 1997. Afterwards, monthly salaries were awarded and remain in place to this day. Another stream of income for certified thugs, rapists and murderers.
Tellingly, the government of Zimbabwe has never issued an official apology for Gukurahundi. Not even a sincere acknowledgement of the genocide to pave way for a genuine process of healing for the victims and redemption for the perpetrators. This has created a divided nation, rendering Zimbabwe a unitary state only in terms of geography and army secured territorial integrity. Though an apology could never amount to reparations nor instant healing, it could at least be a sincere starting point towards closure and restorative justice. If a mere apology is hard to obtain, then what hope is there for fair compensation of victims, let alone prosecution of perpetrators?
Consider what happened in East Germany back in 1990, before the fall of the Berlin Wall. A report in the Los Angeles Times on 12 April, 1990 stated that after four decades of denying a dark past, East Germany finally apologized to Israel and all Jews for the Nazi Holocaust and accepted joint responsibility for the slaughter of 6 million Jews during World War II. “East Germany’s first freely elected Parliament admits joint responsibility on behalf of the people for the humiliation, expulsion and murder of Jewish women, men and children,” said a statement read by Speaker Sabine Bergmann Pohl to a televised session of Parliament.
In many ways Gukurahundi was similar to the Nazi Holocaust. The most notable difference is that whereas the Nazis targeted Jews for being foreigners, the 5th Brigade targeted regular citizens within their own country. Their only crimes were being Ndebele and/or supporting ZAPU, the party led by the late nationalist Dr Joshua Nkomo. ZAPU at the time was designated a terrorist organization after the convenient ‘discovery’ of arms caches planted by the architects of Gukurahundi. That is the strategy that predates Independence Day. A group of ceramic hearted men secretly harbored ambitions to annihilate all Ndebeles and reduce them to a historical footnote.
Identifying as a member or supporter of ZAPU became a death wish. Under the then Prime Minister Robert Mugabe, a caveat was promulgated, outlawing ZAPU and forfeiting all its properties to the state. Some of the properties belonged to ZPRA, the armed wing of ZAPU during the liberation struggle. Being visionaries, ZPRA veterans lawfully purchased a string of valuable properties using funds pooled from their demobilization payouts. The party, ZAPU also invested in movable and immovable properties. Everything was seized and forfeited to the state. Dr Joshua Nkomo was persecuted and hounded into exile. His lieutenants, the late Dr Dumiso Dabengwa and the late Commander Lookout Masuku were thrown into Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison on trumped up charges. The rest is history as the adage goes.
Just like in East Germany in 1990, it has been four decades of denial and deafening silence. As the watershed elections of August 2023 were rigged to maintain the status quo, hopes of a new Zimbabwe remain an elusive dream. ZAPU the corporate victim of Gukurahundi, remains incapacitated. With Mugabe’s caveat frozen in time, the resurging party is struggling to reclaim its purloined glory. As fate would have it, the leader of ZAPU today is none other than Michael Sibangilizwe Nkomo, the very son of the late Dr Joshua Nkomo. One would consider it a golden opportunity for poetic justice but lo and behold, those wielding the levers of power have no desire to allow a new dawn for Zimbabwe. Due to incapacitation, ZAPU could not field its leader for the presidential race. The steep nomination fees demanded by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission made it impossible for ZAPU to effectively participate in the crucial plebiscite.
Apart from the continued onslaught against ZAPU there remains a myriad of unwritten caveats designed to perpetuate Gukurahundi in other subtle and thinly veiled forms. Nothing short of regime change can revive hopes for the genuine resolution of Gukurahundi as a de facto genocide. Whoever emerges as the elected leader of Zimbabwe after unseating ZANU PF, should know that there can never be genuine national healing and cohesion without first addressing the issue of Gukurahundi. That is the elephant in the room. It can never be wished away. Once the issue is properly resolved then devolution of power should be the next logical step. Our country will know a new birth of freedom. Only then can spaghetti roads and skyscrapers mean something for everyone