THE unresolved matter of the Gukurahundi atrocities that claimed the lives of an estimated 20 000 people from Matabeleland and the Midlands can only be solved in a post-President Robert Mugabe era, political analysts said yesterday.
Report by Nduduzo Tshuma
The sentiments follow Mugabe’s statements that Gukurahundi is not something that people should continue talking about. Matabeleland Constitutional Reform Agenda director Effie Ncube said solving the Gukurahundi issue was beyond Mugabe’s capacity and willingness.
“He has shown complete disdain for the victims of the atrocities he ordered,” he said. “We can invest in the next government to resolve the issue.”
Ncube said Mugabe had shown capacity and willingness to commit the crimes, but did not have the same zeal to resolve the matter. Habakkuk Trust chief executive officer, Dumisani Nkomo echoed similar sentiments saying resolving the Gukurahundi issue on the part of Mugabe was akin to cutting a tree branch one is sitting on.
“Firstly, if the whole truth was to be told as Mugabe says it hasn’t been told, there is need for a truth commission to be legally constituted to deal with the matter,” he said.
“It is difficult, however, for the perpetrator to set up such a system. It is like a thief inviting people to come and investigate it.
“If the perpetrators of Gukurahundi are still ruling, it will be hard to resolve the matter.”
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Nkomo said if the perpetrators of the mass killings wanted peace before their death, it was advisable that they set systems to resolve Gukurahundi so that all would be revealed about the matter and the country would move on.
Speaking on the SABC 3 programme People of the South, in a two-part interview recorded last December, Mugabe claimed dissidents, whom he referred to as guerrillas, were the ones responsible for the atrocities, claiming they cut off people’s body parts.
