Chiefs controlled by Mnangagwa, Mabiza in Gukurahundi process: Ibhetshu LikaZulu

A local pressure group, Ibhetshu LikaZulu, is accusing President Emmerson Mnangagwa and Attorney General Virginia Mabiza of micromanaging the Gukurahundi Community Outreach Programme, reducing traditional leaders to mere implementers as the resolution process continues to stir controversy.
Speaking during a discussion on CITEโs X Spaces current affairs programme, This Morning on Asakhe, on Tuesday about whether chiefs can effectively resolve the Gukurahundi issue, Ibhetshu LikaZulu Secretary General, Mbuso Fuzwayo, described the programme as heavily controlled by the presidency and the Matabeleland Peace-Building Outreach Programme Secretariat, led by Mabiza.
READ: https://cite.org.zw/chiefs-alone-cannot-resolve-gukurahundi%EF%BF%BC/
โYou will realise there is a lot of micromanagement. People will call it the chiefs process but it is a Mabiza and Mnangagwa process because they are the ones calling the shots,โ Fuzwayo said. โThe chiefs are just implementing what they are told. At the end of the day, Mabiza and Mnangagwa are the ones who will have the technical team to process the information.โ
During the official launch of the Gukurahundi Community Outreach Programme in July last year, Deputy president of the National Chiefs Council, Chief Fortune Charumbira revealed the exercise was President Mnangagwaโs personal project, which he was rolling out with the assistance of chiefs.
READ: https://cite.org.zw/gukurahundi-outreach-program-is-mnangagwas-personal-project-charumbira/
While the chiefsโ outreach programme seeks to foster reconciliation, critics have pointed out how the design of the Gukurahundi Community Outreach Programme, dominated by central government figures, undermines its credibility and effectiveness.

Fuzwayo also pointed to remarks made in Parliament as evidence of the programmeโs centralisation by the presidency.
โThe Nkulumane MP once asked for legislation on the Gukurahundi process, and the Speaker of the National Assembly responded that โthe results will be made public if it suits the president.โ This clearly shows that it is not a chiefsโ process but a Mabiza and Mnangagwa process supported by people like Thabani Mpofu,โ he said.
READ: https://cite.org.zw/mp-pushes-for-gukurahundi-legislation/
The human rights activist also highlighted how the current approach lacks critical elements for genuine resolution, such as acknowledgment of wrongdoing and truth-telling.
โIf you want to resolve something, you must first acknowledge that something happened. Someone must take responsibility and say, โThis wrong happened, and I am responsible,โโ Fuzwayo argued.
โWho should acknowledge? It is the one who sent the military to go to communities.โ
READ: https://www.justiceinfo.net/en/42456-zimbabwe-mugabe-is-buried-not-the-past.html
Fuzwayo also criticised the absence of opportunities for victims to directly address perpetrators, noting meaningful reconciliation requires open dialogue between the two parties.
โThere has to be a truth telling aspect. The truth telling aspect is not the victim speaking to the chief but it is an opportunity where the victim can speak to the perpetrator and the perpetrator speaks to the victim and the country,โ he added
Fuzwayo added there was lack of clarity on whether the military or other implicated parties would participate in the process.
โAt the present moment, this process does not allow the perpetrators to speak. We are not told when the military is going to speak. So it is not a complete thing because you are saying the victims will speak,โ he said.
โIn Silobela, people were forcibly disappeared. The only witnesses are relatives and those who saw them being taken. They know the perpetrators were driving Land Rovers at night, but they donโt know what happened after that.โ
Fuzwayo likened the current Gukurahundi process to resolving a family dispute without addressing the root cause.
โEven in communities when a girl falls pregnant, when families are trying to resolve the matter there has to be a person responsible for the pregnancy. This sounds like a matter whereby a girl is impregnated by the Holy Spirit (because the person responsible is absent from the talks),โ said the activist.
He argued that Zimbabweโs resolution process should have followed models like South Africaโs Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which prioritised truth-telling even without a justice component.
โAt least the South African process acknowledged the truth, but this one has nothing. Victims are allowed to speak, but there is no restorative justice or accountability,โ Fuzwayo said.
Meanwhile, Fuzwayo also accused the government of trying to erase the memory of Gukurahundi through deliberate actions, such as converting Bhalagwe – a site where atrocities were committed into a Heroes Acre.
โIn the early 2000s, Bhalagwe was designated a Heroes Acre. You canโt turn a crime scene into something positive by giving it a good name. This is a way of erasing memory,โ he said.
Ibhetshu LikaZulu has erected memorial plaques in places like Bhalagwe and Silobela to honour victims, but these have been repeatedly destroyed or stolen.
READ: https://cite.org.zw/gukurahundi-memorialisation-the-fight-for-justice-in-zimbabwe/ย
โWe put up four plaques at Bhalagwe and all were destroyed. In Silobela, two plaques commemorating 10 forcibly disappeared men were stolen. It is not criminals but it is the State that has removed all the plaques that we have erected, so itโs a process of trying to erase memory.
Fuzwayo described the destruction and theft of plaques as a systematic effort by the State to micromanage how the Gukurahundi narrative is preserved and disseminated.
โWhen it comes to memory work in Zimbabwe, the State wants to micromanage what must be known, how it should be known,โ said the activist.
The current process is just a comical drama being staged with the hope that the memories of the genocide will fade away…