‘Gukurahundi was a genocide’
The mass killing of people that occurred in Matabeleland and parts of Midlands in the 1980s in Zimbabwe was a genocide, an international crime, an international law expert has said.
From 1982 to 1987, an estimated 20 000 people, mostly Ndebele, were beaten, tortured, burnt, hacked to death or shot dead while others were forcibly disappeared.
The government has not classified these atrocities a genocide, as authorities prefer to use a watered-down phrase – โhistorical disturbancesโ but human rights experts have unreservedly pointed out Gukurahundi was a genocide.
Human rights advocate and legal expert, Siphosami Malunga, said calling out atrocities for what they are is a step forward.
โYou donโt need every Shona to kill Ndebele for it to be genocide. Five people can commit a genocide and five of them can be Ndebele and can commit a genocide against Ndebeles. You hear them say,ย โno, how was it genocide when (one of the founding fathers of Zanu, who was classified a Ndebele – Enos,) Nkala was there.โย Do you even understand what genocide is before you even start telling me Nkala was part of it? You can kill your own people, itโs possible.โ
Malunga, executive director at Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA), explained that Gukurahundi was an international crime against humanity.
โThereโs no question about it. There were crimes against humanity, whose definition is a widespread systematic attack against a civilian population. Was Gukurahundi widespread, was it systematic, was it an attack on civilians? Thatโs it,โ he said, noting courts had a standard definition of such crimes.
โGo the International Criminal Court, thatโs how they define crimes against humanity. Thatโs how the International Criminal Tribunal for (the former) Yugoslavia defines it, same with the Criminal Court in Rwanda and the Special Court in Sierra Leone.โ
Malunga underscored Gukurahundi was genocide and defined it as โthe total or partial destruction of a group of people by virtue of their identity.โ
โYou say it was a genocide, you hear, โno, no. There was no attempt to kill Ndebeles.โ Come on who are you fooling, even (the late former president Robert) Mugabe himself admitted it was a genocide.โ
Malunga recalled that when Mugabe was asked for his thoughts on Gukurahundi some years back at the State House, he said, โโโฆyou know the Ndebele partyโฆโโ
But Malunga questioned, โwhen ZAPU was ever a Ndebele party?โ
โZAPU had Nziramasanga, Nyandoro, Musikavanhu. ZAPU was the most un-Ndebele party you can ever see and that was the problem many people were having with Nkomo. But it was convenient for Mugabe to say it was a Ndebele party. That then tells you what Mugabeโs thinking and the intention was, which was to go and kill these Ndebeles because in his mind these Ndebeles support ZAPU so you cut off the ZAPU support system but you are really targeting Ndebeles.โ
โMugabe didnโt even hide it. Of course, we all know that in our villages when they (Fifth Brigade army) came, they made us sing songs in Shona. We know that if you screamed โmaiweโ you were spared. We know that they would separate people in buses after looking at their Identity Cards. If you were not Ndebele, you would be spared,โ Malunga said.
โDonโt tell us it was not a genocide, we know it was a genocide.โ