ZIMRIGHTS has called for an independent commission to lead a genuine truth telling on Gukurahundi, and flagged the ongoing chiefs-led process as bogus with no legal foundation.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa tasked traditional leaders to lead public hearings into the 1980’s massacres in Midlands and Matabeleland.
The exercise is being conducted away from the public eye amid widespread criticism that the process was flawed and meant to sweep the emotive issue under the carpet.
In its latest report titled: The 2024 - 2025 State of Peace Report: Mobilising Ideas and Actions for Peace in Zimbabwe September 2025, ZimRights said the scale of the massacres needed a genuine independent commission to find closure and healing.
“But the greatest challenge of the process has been the lack of credibility,” ZimRights said.
“The process has no legal foundation and operates without any policy framework.
“The process violates the Guiding Principles for Transitional Justice Policy and Practice in Zimbabwe, developed and adopted by civil society organisations under the banner of the National Transitional Justice Working Group in Zimbabwe in September 2015.”
Critics have criticised the secrecy surrounding the chief-led hearings, and said the process lacked transparency.
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The report added: “It is, therefore, not surprising that the process has been mainly a backyard show for the Ministry of Justice, which has no mandate to handle transitional justice.
“Since its beginning, three activists have been displaced from the Matabeleland region for being critical of the process.
“Some stakeholders from Matebeleland have continued to monitor the process and have reported that the process is over-securitised.
“Create an independent commission specifically to investigate Gukurahundi abuses, in line with best practices and previous transitional justice recommendations.”
Mnangagwa was a State Security minister at the time when the North Korean trained Fifth Brigade unleashed a reign of terror, leaving over 20 000 civilians dead.
Other researchers have categorised Gukurahundi as crimes against humanity, and in some frameworks, genocide.
AN international researcher who has documented the Gukurahundi atrocities, Hazel Cameron, has slammed the manner in which public hearings are being conducted saying it is a final betrayal of the victims.
Cameron’s research into Gukurahundi includes Operation Gukurahundi: A policy of genocidal rape and sexual violence in Zimbabwe 1983 – 1984, The Matabeleland massacres: Britain’s willful blindness and State Organised starvation: A weapon of Exterme Mass Violence in Matabeleland South, 1984.
Cameron said the secrecy around the public hearings was astounding.
