A local pressure group, Ibhetshu LikaZulu held a memorial lecture on Monday in honour of the six foreign tourists who were kidnapped and later killed in 1982 in Matabeleland North.
On July 23, 1982, Tony Bajzelz and William Butler from Australia, James Greenwell and Martyn Hodgson from the United Kingdom, and Kevin Ellis and Brett Baldwin from the United States were murdered at Insuza on the Bulawayo to Victoria Falls Road.
The memorial lecture was held to honour their death anniversary and is part of Ibhetshu LikaZulu’s efforts to encourage reconciliation by assisting communities in learning from the past.
Presenting the lecture was academic and writer, Dr Samukele Hadebe who said as Zimbabwe tries to heal from the genocide, these six individuals cannot be treated as just nameless tourists.
“These are victims of a conflict that had nothing to do with them at all. Their lives should not have been taken that way when even the perpetrator knew too well of their innocence. May the respective families of Tony, William, James, Martyn, Kevin and Brett know that we shall never forget what happened to their loved ones,” he said.
“There is definitely no way of repaying the loss and pain they continue to suffer. This memorial lecture is a small gesture of atonement by a brutalised people.”
Such memorial lectures, according to Dr Hadebe, are vital for unpacking the reasons for memorialisation and memory-making in order to promote progressive values and a ‘Never Again’ mentality.
The researcher also remarked the Gukurahundi period remains a site of contested memory, with an official narrative advocated by Zimbabwean officials but contested by victims.
“The innocent victimhood of Tony, William, James, Martyn, Kevin and Brett is the shared victimhood of all the innocent who were murdered in our communities, the disappeared, tortured, raped and those still living with deep mental scars and trauma.”
Dr Hadebe stated that internationally, the Gukurahundi genocide remains a controversial and tricky question, citing a half-hearted attempt by Zimbabwean authorities to address some aspects of it.
“There is also a cloud of fear still enveloping any talk of the genocide by affected communities and human rights organisations. There is not much in the public domain about the various aspects of the genocide and banditry that supposedly triggered it,” he said.
Therefore, with no chance of “genuine truth-telling” by victims, perpetrators and witnesses, Dr Hadebe claimed a lot will remain unknown to the public.
Although it is possible to be at the wrong place at the wrong moment when an unexpected disaster occurs, Dr Hadebe claims the six visitors were carefully selected targets.
He added that few people also believe it was a mere coincidence for the bandits led by Gilbert Ngwenya to have randomly picked their target vehicle that happened to have British, Australian and American nationals.
“Some people believe somehow the bandits must have had prior information about the unfortunate visitors and their travel details between Bulawayo and Victoria Falls,” said the academic.
“Who then could have had such information about visiting people and how could the bandits living in the forests of Matabeleland North have received that information? Whatever the real facts are, we may never know as yet but what is beyond doubt is that what was then perceived as a simmering local dispute had taken a deeply international dimension by the mere targeting of foreign nationals.”
Dr Hadebe further said the subsequent arrest, trial and death penalty for Ngwenya and his accomplices have not calmed “lingering suspicions that whoever was behind these infamous bandits had a far bigger agenda that deliberately created a certain perception in the international community” resulting in the unfolding genocide in Matabeleland and Midlands.
“Obviously, the abduction of the innocent six visitors did not in any way help the cause of the bandits, that is, if indeed they had any cause. So, why did they embark on such an outrageous and even dangerous acts that obviously worked against them?” reflected the academic.
“The conduct of the bandits during the court processes raised many questions that still remain unanswered. Apart from lacking a coherent story about the whereabouts of the abducted six tourists, the accused bandits created the impression that perhaps the abducted were held somewhere in Zambia by some Russians. Of course, the USSR embassy denied that fabrication.”
However the mention of Zambia and the Russians, the plot of internationalising the whole macabre incident was thickening, said Dr Hadebe, who argued that claims made by the accused bandits, who were sentenced to death, could easily be dismissed as spurious but such was not the case in the context of the early 1980s.
According to Dr Hadebe, this was during the Cold War, ‘a real rivalry’ between the communist Eastern bloc led by the Soviet Union and the capitalist Western bloc led by the US that permeated all facets of international relations and Zimbabwe’s armed independence struggle, could not escape such effects.
