By Richard Gandari
On the 23rd of August 2023, Zimbabweans will cast their ballots in a crucial election with the highest stakes since independence. Many candidates vying for power have published their manifestos during campaign rallies.
The promises made to the electorate can easily outnumber the breams in Kariba Dam. From spaghetti roads in Masvingo to escalators in Muzarabani, all manner of pies in the sky have been baked by demagogues hoping to get into elected office. Yet there is a thorny issue that many of them have craftily avoided.
The issue predates Zimbabwe’s independence in terms of motives and blueprints for execution. It is a genocide aptly called Gukurahundi by its perpetrators. 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. Traumatised and ignored, their plight remains dire with most of them condemned to mere existence and untimely death. Needless to say, some are practically disenfranchised as citizens without identity documents.
Yet the perpetrators of Gukurahundi are not only free but actually thriving. When their Korean-trained 5th 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. Free farms, army pension, civil servant salary plus looting opportunities via opaque tender awards. 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 the $50,000 lumpsum 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.
The government of Zimbabwe has never issued an official apology for Gukurahundi. Not even a sincere acknowledgement of the genocide to pave the 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 or instant healing, it could at least be a sincere starting point towards closure and restoration. If an 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 apologised 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 at the time was designated a terrorist organization after the ‘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 harboured 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 by 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 we approach the watershed elections on 23 August 2023, hopes of a new Zimbabwe remain a disheartening mirage. ZAPU the corporate victim of Gukurahundi, remains incapacitated. With Mugabe’s caveat still frozen in time, there is no way ZAPU can rise 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 powers that be 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 but thinly veiled forms. Recent attempts to bar more than 16 Bulawayo-based opposition candidates from standing in the upcoming elections broke my heart. That was the last straw that forced my hand to pen this opinion piece. Whoever emerges as the elected leader of Zimbabwe after this election should know that there will 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.
