Balagwe celebrations revive Gukurahundi memories

Politics
IMAGINE being forced to celebrate a public holiday, where your relative is buried, in an unmarked grave and with his death unacknowledged.

IMAGINE being forced to celebrate a public holiday, where your relative is buried, in an unmarked grave and with his death unacknowledged, yet the person who is responsible for that murder is the one telling you to celebrate?

Richard Muponde

Well, this is what villagers in Maphisa have to endure every Heroes’ Day, as they are forced to attend commemorations at Balagwe, a former Gukurahundi concentration camp, which has been converted into a district heroes’ acre.

Balagwe was used as a Gukurahundi torture camp in the mid-1980s and many civilians were reportedly butchered and their bodies allegedly thrown into Antelope Mine, a few metres away from the said heroes’ acre. However, opinion leaders from the areas have urged people in Matobo District not to attend this year’s Heroes’ Day commemorations if they are held at Balagwe. Heroes’ Day commemorations are going to be held on August 11.

Zanu PF deputy national spokesperson Cain Mathema whose party leader, President Robert Mugabe, is accused of being responsible for Gukurahundi atrocities, declined to comment on the matter.

“Isn’t I told you that I do not give interviews or comments to Southern Eye?,” he charged. “I have no comment.”

Civil activist, Dumisani Nkomo, who hails from the same district, urged people from his home area to shun this year’s celebrations if they are to be held at the site.

“It is an insult to the victims of Gukurahundi to make them celebrate Heroes’ Day at the camp yet in their minds they know people who were buried there are not liberation heroes, but their relatives killed by Gukurahundi,” he said. “It is very insensitive. I will tell our people not to go there.” Former councillor for Ward 10, Alexander Phiri (MDC-T), in whose ward Balagwe Camp is located, said people in the area were not going to attend the celebrations unless the government chose an alternative site for a heroes’ acre.

“We will not attend the commemorations,” he said. “People who are buried there are not soldiers but children, mothers and our brothers who were killed during Gukurahundi and are in mass graves.

“We cannot agree to such an insult. People in this area are adamant they will not attend the commemorations. Maybe the government will bus in people from other areas who do not know the history of this place to attend the commemorations. We cannot condone such an insult.”

Phiri said the camp reminded them of the Gukurahundi atrocities, where at least 50 villagers, allegedly killed by the 5 Brigade, were buried in a mass grave at the site.

“We will not attend any Heroes’ Day commemorations as long as that place remains a heroes’ acre,” he said. Matobo South legislator Gabriel Ndebele recently said he was tortured and left for dead at the site during the Gukurahundi era in the 1980s.

“In 2011, I was invited as an MP to the Heroes’ Day commemorations at Balagwe,” he said. “I said I would not attend. I am one of the victims who passed through this camp.

“I said I could not dance at this place, with my conscience knowing what the place really represents. This year they invited me again and I refused.

“I will not go there unless they change the venue.”