(NEWZIMBABWE) Gukurahundi author is no African liberator
Cheered in South Africa ... President Robert Mugabe and wife, Grace, hold hands after paying their respects at Mandela in Pretoria
22/12/2013 00:00:00
by Paul Trewhela I Politicsweb.co.za
COMMENT - The writer cites Wikipedia? How about interviewing Breyten Breytenbach's brother Col. Jan Dirk Breytenbach, founder of the South African Special Forces' 1st Recce Commando, and ask him why he authorized the killing of white farmers in Zimbabwe for political advantage his unit Super ZAPU - see the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace in Zimbabwe's 1997 report. The psychological warfare operations that preceded whatever happened in Matabeleland, and should be acknowledged as part of the entire picture. The MDC is trying to milk this issue - which they care nothing about - for political gain. Also, the Catholic Commission mentions the number 3,750, not 20,000, which has remained unexplained. So the author at best is overstating the case when he tries to claim that "There is no question that Mugabe ordered the mass murder of more than 20,000 isiNdebele-speakers in Zimbabwe". An absurd charge, that does not take into account the events immediately following political independence in 1980. Finally, don't believe me, the way the author insists you should believe him - read the original report instead, and just search the terms breytenbach or super zapu. - MrK
PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe received loud cheers when he appeared at the memorial tribute to Nelson Mandela at FNB Stadium in Soweto on Tuesday 10 December.
Similarly, Andile Mngxitama - who spoke on the BBC television programme, Question Time, two days later in a debate staged in Johannesburg, wearing the red beret of Julius Malema's Economic Freedom Fighters - published an article in the Sunday Independent on 2 June this year under the title, "Mugabe hero of African liberation."
According to Mngxitama's opening sentence, "President Robert Mugabe is the greatest black statesman alive today in Africa."
The question is: What does it mean, when South Africans celebrate Robert Mugabe?
There is no question that Mugabe ordered the mass murder of more than 20,000 isiNdebele-speakers in Zimbabwe in the two years after January 1983, when his Fifth Brigade - trained by the fascist dictatorship of North Korea, and responsible to himself alone as Prime Minister - was deployed to kill in Matabeleland.
Wikipedia states this about the massacre: "Most of the dead were shot in public executions, often after being forced to dig their own graves in front of family and fellow villagers. The largest number of dead in a single killing was on 5 March 1983, when 62 young men and women were shot on the banks of the Cewale River, Lupane. Seven survived with gunshot wounds, the other 55 died.
"Another way 5 Brigade used to kill large groups of people was to burn them alive in huts. They did this in Tsholotsho and also in Lupane. They would routinely round up dozens, or even hundreds, of civilians and march them at gun point to a central place, like a school or bore-hole. There they would be forced to sing Shona songs praising ZANU, at the same time being beaten with sticks. These gatherings usually ended with public executions. Those killed could be ex-ZIPRAs, ZAPU officials, or anybody chosen at random."
The word "Gukurahundi" is an expression in the Shona language, meaning "the first rain that washes away the chaff of the last harvest before the spring rains."
The grim reality of Zimbabwe is that both of its main political parties - ZANU and ZAPU - were and remain tribalist political parties, not nationalist parties. Both armies, ZANLA and ZIPRA, were in effect tribalist armies.
In the best first-hand account so far of the joint military campaign in 1967 by Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) together with ZIPRA in the Wankie and Sipolilo areas of Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia, under the white minority regime of Ian Smith), the two authors - both isiZulu-speaking members of MK, Thula Bophela and Daluxolo Luthuli - register their shock at when they and their comrades discovered this huge difference of principle between MK and ZIPRA.
"The ZIPRA men puzzled the MK soldiers," they write in their joint autobiographical history, Umkhonto we Sizwe: Fighting for a Divided People (Galago, Alberton, 2005). "They spent much of their time boasting about what they intended to do to ZANLA if they ever met up in the bush. They swore they would wipe them out....It seemed they considered ZANLA the real enemy and not the Rhodesians."
As the two authors recall, "This ZAPU-ZANU rivalry would cause us great distress later."
What happened, however, was this: between the Wankie/Sipolilo campaign in 1967 and formation of the first independence government of Zimbabwe in 1979, for a variety of reasons ZIPRA failed as a military force, while ZANLA succeeded.
ZIPRA, and ZAPU, rested on a minority tribe, the Ndebele. ZANLA, and ZANU, rested on the overwhelming majority tribe, the Shona.
The phrase "gukurahundi" for the campaign of mass murder of the amaNdebele by the ZANU government meant that the minority tribe was to be punished. Human beings were to be treated as "chaff", as dead dry husks of maize from the previous year's harvest.
The account in Wikipedia of the Gukurahundi genocide is consistent with the detailed, carefully researched account published by the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace in Zimbabwe, together with the Legal Resources Foundation of Zimbabwe, under the title Gukurahundi in Zimbabwe: A Report on the Disturbances in Matabeleland and the Midlands, 1980-1988 (First published in 1997 as Breaking the Silence: Building True Peace).
Elinor Sisulu, the daughter-in-law of Walter and Albertina Sisulu, wrote the introduction for the 2007 edition. She rightly compares the "enormous and heinous crimes against the people of Zimbabwe" perpetrated by the government of Robert Mugabe in 1983-85 with the genocidal massacre of Tutsis carried out by the Interahamwe in Rwanda in 1994 and the massacres carried out by Hitler's Nazis.
I wonder if Mngxitama can explain how a Nazi-type massacre just north of Limpopo province permits a description of the man who ordered it as a "hero of African liberation", and as "the greatest black statesman alive today in Africa" (this written while Nelson Mandela was living).
There is a strange absence of moral and political integrity here.
Supposing we take a death toll of 20, 000 people murdered by Mugabe's Fifth Brigade in Gukurahundi (rather than the figure of "at least 30,000 people" cited in the preface to the 1997 edition of Gukurahundi in Zimbabwe), this was an enormous number of people killed in a small region in less than two years.
The number of people killed by the Mugabe government in this massacre is probably more than the total of all the political killings committed in South Africa in the 34 years from the beginning of 1960 (before the massacre at Sharpeville) to the first democratic general election in April 1994.
And this was carried out by a government whose leader was cheered at the memorial tribute for Nelson Mandela, and described by Mngxitama as a "hero of African liberation."
Strange liberation, which liberated so many souls so untimely from their earthly selves.Strange hero statesman, who gives the order to kill so many of his citizens ... Strange apostle of "freedom", the one who praises such a statesman, whether we consider freedom as economic, or political, or spiritual, or otherwise.
The fact is, the political tradition of liberation from minority rule in South Africa runs opposite to the tradition in Zimbabwe, not along the same path.
What Gukurahundi showed is that the title of Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) is a fraud. The party is not national at all. It is a tribalist party, which carried out a mass tribalist massacre of people from another tribe.This can never be forgotten.
It is a shame and disgrace to the historic tradition of black liberation in South Africa that this blatant, blood-soaked truth is not shouted from the rooftops by all political parties, and especially by the African National Congress.
From the time it was formed as the Native National Congress in 1912, the ANC earned its title of "national" - unlike ZANU, and ZAPU - by its deeds.It was formed very consciously and deliberately on the principle of anti-tribalism. The founders of the ANC were clear that tribal politics could only lead black people of the newly-created Union of South Africa to defeat and misery. Despite all kinds of stresses and strains - especially in exile - that principle was upheld successfully throughout the whole of the past century.
Whether as the ANC, or as the Pan Africanist Congress, or as the Black Consciousness Movement, no major current in the struggle for liberation from apartheid ever fractured into separate tribalist parties, as happened in Zimbabwe - the great failure of political principle in Zimbabwe, which had its terrible result in Gukurahundi.
This is a warning to South Africa.There is no more urgent warning from the life and death Nelson Mandela, who maintained the principle of anti-tribalism throughout his life, and extended it to anti-racism.
It is a disgrace that a tribalist mass murderer was cheered, at the tribute to the man who epitomised the founding principles of the ANC.Shame on those who cheer Robert Mugabe, and shame on any South African who calls such a man the "hero of African liberation."
Labels: GUKURAHUNDI, ROBERT MUGABE, SUPER ZAPU
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(NEWZIMBABWE) Zanu PF, Gukurahundi and apartheid South Africa
09/09/2013 00:00:00
by Timothy Scarnecchia
IN the aftermath of Zanu PF founder and former minister Enos Nkala’s death, debate has been raging about his role in Zimbabwe’s political history, particularly the liberation struggle, as well as his contribution to nation-building, and also repression in the mid-south-western regions immediately after Independence in 1980.
In a bid to shed more light on events during the dark era of state-sponsored killings in the Midlands and the South-West –– the Gukurahundi period, in which Nkala was actively involved despite his denials –– we publish an insightful piece by Kent State University’s Professor Timothy Scarnecchia, an expert on Zimbabwean and African history.
This article examines the role of diplomatic relations during the first stages of the 1983 Gukurahundi in Zimbabwe. Based on a preliminary reading of South African Department of Foreign Affairs files for 1983, the article suggests that Cold War relations between Zimbabwe and the United Kingdom helped to provide cover for the Zimbabwean National Army’s Fifth Brigade’s campaign of terror.
Similarly, American support for President Robert Mugabe’s claims to be a pro-Western leader committed to non-racialism helped provide international cover for the atrocities.
At the same time, evidence shows high-ranking Zanu PF officials negotiated with the South African Defence Forces in 1983 to cooperate in their efforts to keep Zapu from supporting South Africa’s ANC operations in Zimbabwe. The 5th Brigade’s campaign therefore served a purpose for apartheid South Africa, even as Zanu PF officials rationalised the Gukurahundi violence in international and anti-apartheid circles as a campaign against South African destabilisation.
The article suggests that the diplomatic history of the Gukurahundi can provide a useful lens for understanding the tragedy in both regional and international Cold War contexts.
In her popular book Dinner with Mugabe, Heidi Holland includes a quote from Mugabe where he accuses some factions in Zanu PF of “cutting deals with the British and Americans” after the 2005 elections.
Mugabe asks: “Since when have the British, the Americans, been friends with Zanu PF?” Mugabe’s often repeated claim that the United States and the United Kingdom are the enemies of Zanu PF and hence of Zimbabwe does not stand up well to historical scrutiny.
A party which is 50 years old has experienced a number of victories, and many of these were partly the result of American and British assistance, both directly and indirectly.
There are at least four periods in the transition from Rhodesia to Zimbabwe during which the US and the UK offered opportunities to Mugabe and his allies to attain power and then consolidate it.
The first was in 1963 in Tanzania after the formation of Zanu.
The second was during Henry Kissinger’s 1976 shuttle diplomacy and the subsequent removal of radical forces from Zipa following the talks. The third period was during the elections after the Lancaster House Agreement when the British, under American pressure, rushed an election and peace settlement in order to pre-empt further Soviet and Cuban involvement in Zimbabwe, which resulted in a victory for Mugabe.
Mugabe received extensive support from the UK and US governments, while simultaneously portraying his government as a leading Frontline state in the anti-apartheid struggle.
However, the anti-apartheid efforts of Zanu PF were constrained by the realities of regional power. Faced with a much more powerful South African military and economy, Mugabe found it more convenient to cooperate with the apartheid South African Defence Forces against Joshua Nkomo’s Zapu given the historic ties between Zapu and South Africa’s ANC.
Cold War realities meant that Mugabe could benefit from his rivals’ longstanding support from the Soviets and the links between Soviet support for Zapu and the ANC. Mugabe and others in Zimbabwe’s new government therefore worked with South Africa to keep Zapu from providing bases for the ANC’s military wing, Umkhonto weSizwe in Zimbabwe.
This article will take a preliminary look at a fourth period, which took place during 1983, and examine how the Cold War offered Mugabe and Zanu PF the international cover to carry out atrocities against Zimbabwean civilians in a campaign known as the Gukurahundi.
This military campaign, which began in January 1983 and then returned before, during, and after the 1985 elections, cost the lives of thousands of Zimbabweans. Those involved as perpetrators of the violence were granted a blanket amnesty after the creation of a new unity government in 1987, and thus far calls for a national Truth and Reconciliation Commission to address this violence have not been answered.
The archival documents for early 1980s’ diplomatic history with Zimbabwe are just becoming available in the US and the UK, and more documents will be released over the next few years. Some very helpful evidence is now available in the South African Department of Foreign Affairs files for 1983 in Pretoria. Based on the latter, this article outlines some of the difficult issues historians of foreign relations will confront as more diplomatic sources become available.
As there already exists a large amount of writing in the state formation literature on Zimbabwe’s first few years, and the ways in which Zanu PF consolidated power at the expense of Zapu, this article will examine this period through the lens of diplomacy. The Cold War gave extraordinary powers to small states and allowed African nationalist leaders to manipulate their often-precarious ties to a mass base through the rhetoric of anti-imperialism, socialism and the non-aligned movement.
It appears that all sides, while recognising the relative imbalances of power, nevertheless understood there were times when intransigency on international issues gave Mugabe and the Zanu PF elites greater bargaining power than would have been possible without the threat of Cold War co-operation with the Soviets and Cubans.
The violence created by Cold War interventions into decolonisation from 1960 to the early 1990s was tragic and costly to southern Africa’s populations, although one cannot forget that for certain elites this offered room to manoeuvre against their rivals and to benefit directly from attendant foreign aid.
Given this hot Cold War in southern Africa, as Vladimir Shubin has called it, Mugabe, like other Frontline State leaders, was able to have both American and Soviet support for the new nation. The Soviets, who had previously supported Mugabe’s rival Nkomo and Zapu, realised it would be better to try and influence policies in Harare directly through Mugabe and those in Zanu PF who were ostensibly pro-Soviet.
Because of Western pressure on Mugabe to show his anti-communist credentials in exchange for direct financial aid, the Soviet embassy was the last embassy to be opened in Harare after Independence, and despite inroads in terms of technical and some military support, the Soviets were not made to feel welcome in the early 1980s.
Part of the agreement to establish relations with the Soviets included the insistence that the Soviet Union breaks ties with Zapu and deal only with Zanu PF. According to Shubin, the Soviets had already stopped their material support to Zapu “immediately after the political settlement was reached”, but Zanu PF wanted to rule out any future Soviet aid to Zapu.
The Americans viewed Mugabe and Zimbabwe as a non-Soviet southern African state that with sufficient funding and support could help maintain a balance against Soviet and Cuban influence in Angola, Mozambique and to a certain extent in Zambia.
However, Cold War interests were not the only factor influencing American diplomatic views of Mugabe. American opinion favoured seeing Mugabe’s new state as a victim of past racial oppression.
Therefore Mugabe’s strategy to reconcile with white farmers by allowing them to remain on their land and with white owners of businesses was very popular with American diplomats and a non-racial reconciliation made Mugabe popular in Washington.
As Nancy Mitchell argues, the Carter administration had feared direct Cuban and Soviet involvement in Zimbabwe that would likely lead to a war between South Africa and the Frontline states. In order to avoid such a conflict, the Americans pressured the British to work with Mugabe rather than Nkomo and Bishop Abel Muzorewa as the leader of the Patriotic Front preferred by America.
The British and the South Africans were less convinced than the Americans of Mugabe’s non-racialism, given their substantial personal and financial ties to white-controlled interests in Rhodesia, but Mugabe’s peaceful transition to power in 1980 became a major foreign policy success for Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher during her first term in office.
As Chris Saunders and Sue Onslow suggest, the Americans saw the peaceful transition to Zimbabwe brokered by the British as “the greatest reverse the Russians have suffered in Africa for years”.
Saunders and Onslow point out that “much of this was, in reality, the West being purblind in the context of the Cold War, for Mugabe continued to use violence to achieve political goals in independent Zimbabwe.”
The West responded to the “success” of Zimbabwean Independence with development funds, both as a Cold War strategy and because it served to reward Mugabe for reconciliation and racial tolerance in 1980. There was a hope that Zimbabwe would stand as a model for transition in Namibia and South Africa in order to avoid further Cold War conflicts.
The amount of Cold War funding for Zimbabwe was quite sizeable. In 1981, the Zimcord meeting produced an impressive commitment from numerous donors to assist Zimbabwe.
“At current exchange rates the total aid attracted by Zimbabwe now amounts to US$1,95 billion. This is more than the US$1,5 billion suggested –– over five years –– by Dr Henry Kissinger as part of the 1976 settlement package. Furthermore, the Zimcord aid refers only to a three-year period,” the meeting concluded.
Just prior to the Zimcord conference, which was to include representatives from 40 countries, 16 United Nations organisations, and 10 international agencies, Mugabe linked development funding to the South African threat.
“We call on the international community to show its fullest practical support for our nonracial democratic system and put into practical effect its abhorrence and repugnance of the apartheid system in South Africa,” Mugabe said.
“Failure to give Zimbabwe support for its reconstruction and development plans would bolster the evil designs of the apartheid regime in South Africa to hold our economy to ransom and destabilise our political system.”
This strategy succeeded for the first few years of Zimbabwe’s existence, but the Cold War-funded security state did not in itself sufficiently enrich the Zanu PF elites, as Norma Kriger demonstrates, given the continued domination of white businesses and farms, and white control over key government bureaucracies. Mugabe and his colleagues in Zanu PF decided to take action to gain access to wealth for party elites, but they were constrained by the international perception of non-racial reconciliation, which made it difficult to attack white business and farming interests.
Faced with entrenched opposition, Mugabe and Zanu PF looked to ex-guerrilla war veterans as their main patronage group. At first this included both Zanla and Zipra, but by 1981 the ruling party, Zanu PF, and its Zanla guerrillas could not conceal their preference for building power on an exclusively Zanla guerrilla base and for using only Zanla’s guerrilla struggle for legitimacy. The resulting attacks on Zapu’s political organisation, former Zipra ex-combatants, economic assets, and civilian base became the fundamental basis for Operation Gukurahundi in 1983.
Historian Sue Onslow has investigated South Africa’s role in trying to make sure Robert Mugabe and Zanu PF did not come to power in 1980. Onslow sums up South Africa’s strategy after Mugabe’s electoral victory and its impact on the conflict between Zanu and Zapu.
“Mugabe’s victory shocked Pretoria. This drove South Africa back onto violence and subversion in neighbouring countries, rather than trying to manipulate the political process,” she says.
Onslow argues that the involvement of South Africa in supplying a small amount of weapons to Super-Zapu dissidents “rebounded on Zapu/Zipra forces” in the Gukurahundi “as the Mugabe government … was able to stigmatise the disaffected Zipra combatants as stooges of the apartheid state, manipulated by a malevolent and oppressive foreign power”.
South Africa did more to destabilise Zimbabwe in these years, but the support for Super-Zapu dissidents proved to be the most important factor in helping the Zanu PF government rationalise the Gukurahundi.
South Africa’s apartheid president PW Botha launched his “total strategy” to defend South Africa from communist aggression in 1981.
As Stephan Chan describes it, Zimbabwe was not the main military target. Angola and Mozambique were. The idea was to make Zimbabwe and Zambia feel as if they were caught, west and east, in a pincer — so anxious they dared not look south.
This is an important point to remember, how in a Cold War context, Zimbabwe’s relative insignificance in South Africa’s “total strategy” permitted Zanu PF to take advantage of the South African threat internationally while avoiding a direct conflict through co-operation at the highest levels. The Zimbabwean economy was still almost 75% dependent on South African trade in these first few years, so there was little alternative, but to co-operate with Pretoria.
As Stephen Ellis and Tsepo Sechaba have shown, the South African military attacked ANC targets in Zimbabwe with little opposition. Such attacks included the assassination of the ANC’s Joe Gqabi in Harare in July 1981.
South African agents made a series of bomb attacks against the Zimbabwean government. One of these attacks, in December 1981, was an unsuccessful attempt to kill the Zanu PF central committee members in their Harare headquarters. The bomb was detonated in a room above, but the central committee had postponed the meeting.
Given the ability by South Africa to act with impunity in Harare, there was little chance that Zanu PF would be able to confront South Africa militarily.
The Zimbabwean government responded by using the existence of these attacks to consolidate power internally by arresting those former white officers allegedly serving as South African agents, Zapu leaders and attacking the party’s supporters.
By 1982 South Africa’s strategy to attack Mugabe had begun to create its desired effects. As Jocelyn Alexander, JoAnn McGregor, and Terence Ranger argue in their history of Matabeleland, of all the South African acts of sabotage between 1981 and 1982, the most important for understanding the Gukurahundi was “Operation Drama” of late 1982, an effort which involved recruiting and arming a Zimbabwean insurgent group dubbed Super-Zapu.
Various South African agents, many of them recruited from the Rhodesian intelligence service, also played a key role in fomenting distrust.
Alexander et al describe the conflict between these South African-trained and armed Super-Zapu and the “pure Zapu” dissidents between 1982 and 1983 with the South Africans supported ones “never more than 100 (and probably substantially fewer) inside the country”.
Although outnumbered by the “pure Zapu” who wanted nothing to do with South Africa, these Super-Zapu dissidents had better weapons and more ammunition, which was in short supply by 1983. The former Zipra fighters who became dissidents never totalled more than 400.
Joseph Hanlon suggested that the Super-Zapu developed as a response to the deployment of the Fifth Brigade, as South Africa took advantage of the growing anger of former Zipra fighters and civilians living in refugee camps in Botswana.
While Alexander et al stress the small numbers of South African-trained and supplied Super-Zapu, and the response to them by former Zipra dissidents, the reality was that public knowledge of South African support supplied Mugabe, in the Cold War and regional context, the necessary pretext to rationalise the attack on Zapu and Zipra as primarily a response to an external intervention.
In January 1983, the Fifth Brigade of the Zimbabwe National Army (ZNA), consisting of between 2 500 and 3 500 soldiers, was deployed by Mugabe in Matabeleland and the Midlands provinces to “crush” the dissidents.
Made up almost entirely of former Zanla fighters, the Fifth Brigade’s operation was called Gukurahundi, a Shona term that translates as “the early rain which washes away the chaff before the spring rains”. It proceeded to terrorise the populations of the Midlands and Matabeleland provinces, leaving thousands of dead civilians and many others traumatised by their terror tactics.
Mugabe’s ability to contain information about Gukurahundi was one reason for the lack of international outcry. The Zimbabwean state invoked curfews and denied the media access to those areas witnessing the worst atrocities.
The state also used Rhodesia-era laws to impose a state of emergency, arrest and detain Zapu leaders, and deport international journalists for exposing human rights abuses.
But another reason was the general sympathy most informed Westerners had for Mugabe and Zanu PF given its role as a Frontline State. The Zanu PF official line — that given the South African support for the dissidents, the response of the Fifth Brigade was warranted — fits well with the anti-apartheid movement’s solidarity with the Frontline States.
But stories of the Fifth Brigade’s atrocities did manage to get out to the wider world. One of the most perceptive commentaries came from the Guardian’s Nick Davies: “The slaughter of innocent villages in Matabeleland is only the most bloody symptom of a government clampdown which has seen thousands detained without trial, opponents tortured, the press muzzled, the courts defied and trade unions brought to heel.
“The rebellion of armed ‘dissidents’ in Matabeleland is a direct challenge to the government’s whole posture. The government’s response has been equally direct — a deliberate and determined campaign to wipe out the dissidents, to liquidate Nkomo’s Zapu party accused of directing them, and to cause such terror among ordinary civilians that their popular support will wither.”
Davies’ reporting presented the realpolitik behind the rhetoric. It shows that there were brave reporters willing and quite capable of unmasking the masquerade at work in the rhetoric and propaganda produced in Harare and echoed in London and Washington.
The views expressed in South African Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) files for 1983 pointed out the failure of Western Cold War powers to criticise Mugabe for the Gukurahundi, but there is also a sense that the Gukurahundi was viewed as a “success” from the South African point of view.
It offered a number of “benefits”, first and foremost making it difficult for the ANC’s military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe to use Matabeleland as a base for training and attacks across the border into South Africa. It also worked to discredit Mugabe’s international reputation as a prime minister representing a party committed to national reconciliation.
It also, paradoxically, pushed Zimbabwe to co-operate with South Africa on military and intelligence issues, however tentatively and mistrustingly.
Bi-annual meetings between the intelligence staff of Zimbabwe’s Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) and their counterparts in the South African Defence Force (SADF) were held in 1982 and 1983. The SADF notes of a February 7 and 8 1983 meeting in Harare are in the DFA files.
The minutes of this meeting, which took place one month after the Fifth Brigade had been deployed in Matabeleland North, indicate a much less strident tone concerning South Africa’s role in supporting dissidents than that heard in the Zimbabwean media.
The joint intelligence leaders talked about the “role of communist powers in Southern Africa”, “internal terrorism”, and the “security situation in Angola, Mozambique, Botswana and Zimbabwe”. The discussion reportedly noted that “Botswana is falling heavily under the influence of the USSR and accommodating Zipra, ANC and Swapo, which is a cause for common concern” and that “Zimbabwe does not consider political support of the ANC in the same category as military support.
For this reason, they provide office facilities to the ANC in Harare but do not allow them to infiltrate over the RSA/Zimbabwe border”. At the same time, the CIO stated that the so-called dissident problem in Matabeleland was serious and that the rift between Zanu PF and PF Zapu was deep. They conceded that the Lancaster House formula was partly to blame for this situation.
The Zimbabweans repeated the caveat that “although Mr Mugabe was an outspoken Marxist, it did not necessarily mean that he was in the USSR camp”. The South Africans proposed the formation of a “Joint Crisis Committee” to handle “any matter which caused tension to the relations between the two countries and needed prompt rectification to diffuse the situation”.
The Zimbabweans’ reply was that “such a committee is not deemed necessary as no conflict existed between the two countries”. The South Africans suggested the Zimbabweans should accept Prime Minister PW Botha’s “offer to sign a non-aggression pact and the deployment of monitoring teams on either side of the Zimbabwe border”.
Zimbabwe’s Minister of State for Security, Emmerson Mnangagwa, met personally with the SADF team. According to the SADF report, Mnangagwa took personal credit for obtaining “permission from the Prime Minister (Mugabe) for the SADF visit to Harare and for future intelligence meetings of a similar nature.
He claimed that he initiated the RSA/Angola and RSA/Mozambique dialogue”. Mnangagwa also stated that “there were no matters in the Zimbabwe/ RSA relations that were so serious that it required meetings at ministerial level.”
Mnangagwa’s lack of interest in addressing Zimbabwe’s issues with South Africa directly with the SADF demonstrates the inequality of the relationship between South Africa’s military and Zimbabwe’s, as well as the fear that any formal co-operation would be detrimental to Zimbabwe’s image internationally.
In September 1983 American diplomat Robert Cabelly told the South Africans that “Zimbabwe felt that Mozambique and Angola had in fact let them down by having ministerial meetings with South Africa”.
This is an interesting example of how the Americans and South Africans were hearing different things from the Zimbabweans, especially given Mnangagwa’s taking credit for initiating ministerial dialogue between South Africa and the two countries most affected by South African military intervention. Cold War and regional diplomacy were obviously not on the same channel.
Later, in October 1983, Mnangagwa held a press conference reported in Zimbabwe’s state-controlled Herald newspaper and recorded with commentary in the DFA files. Mnangagwa presented two young Zimbabweans, one 16 and the other 18 years old, who were allegedly trained by South Africa to return to Zimbabwe to fight as dissidents.
These two young men were described as having confessed to murdering “a white farmer, his children and the foreman in the Gwanda area”, of ambushes on government vehicles, of “cutting off the hands of two ZNA soldiers and shooting them west of Beitbridge”, and the “destruction of DDF tractors, caterpillars etc near Kezi.”
Mnangagwa reported that these two young men had admitted to being in South Africa for four months, where they were allegedly trained to go to Zimbabwe “to unseat Mugabe’s government as he was not fit to rule”. Their trainers allegedly told them Nkomo was “the right man to govern Zimbabwe” and instructed them to return to “destroy everything and murder farmers as they were the ones who grow food that is eaten by Mugabe’s dogs”.
The DFA commentary pointed out “the fact that Zimbabwe authorities did not raise the matter through the normal channels and instead called an international press conference indicates that this was yet another propaganda exercise to reinforce the destabilisation theme.
The extent of international media coverage will be an indication of the effectiveness of this attempt to prove SA complicity in dissident activities based on dubious circumstantial evidence”.
Scarnecchia is the author of The Urban Roots Democracy and Political Violence in Zimbabwe: Harare and Highfield, 1940-1964 and many other works on the country
COMMENTS
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Bigboy Musonza
You are just a piece of white trash. Since when do pale devils have been experts of African history. We were there and we know. Pale devils like you with homosexual tendencies are well know of thinking through their rotten arses. You will never succeed in averting our history you white moron piece if little sheet.
Labels: GUKURAHUNDI, ZANU-PF
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COMMENT - I still need to see an authoritative source for the 20,000. I quote from the
Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace's March 1997 report:
" FINAL ESTIMATE: The figure for the dead and missing is not less than 3000. This statement is now beyond reasonable doubt. Adding up the conservative suggestions made above, the figure is reasonably certainly 3750 dead. More than that it is still not possible to say, except to allow that the real figure for the dead could be possibly double 3000, or even higher. Only further research will resolve the issue. "
Question: who has done that "further research" that allows us to move from the Catholic Commission's 3,750 to 20,000? Let alone Tendai Biti's 30,000?
This is what else the CC says on the 'dissidents', specifically Super ZAPU, which was armed and trained by South Africa:
" Super ZAPU was the group of South African backed dissidents, which operated in Southern Matabeleland from late 1982 until mid-1984. Super ZAPU consisted of probably fewer than 100 members who were actually actively deployed in Zimbabwe. They were largely recruited from refugee camps and led by ex-ZIPRA members, who had been retrained in South Africa, in the covert operation known as Operation Drama. A Zimbabwean Government briefing paper on the situation in 1983 conceded "the recent efforts of the Fifth Brigade in Matabeleland have offered the South Africans another highly motivated dissident movement on a plate". Some sources claim that it was once again Matt Calloway, an ex-member of the Rhodesian CIO who acted as a double agent for the South Africans, who was a key player in the campaign to recruit from Dukwe Refugee camp in Botswana.
While they operated, South Africa provided ammunition for Super ZAPU, and some of this found its way to other dissident groups in the country: arms and ammunition used by dissidents frequently indicated South Africa as the source of origin, particularly during 1983. Super ZAPU were also directly responsible for the deaths of white farmers in southern Matabeleland, during their time of operation. "
Were they again operative during 2000? Just wondering out loud.
Gukurahundi was not genocide, not by any stretch
02/01/2013 00:00:00
by Mai Jukwa
PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe has called the Gukurahundi killings acts of “madness.” His ever-eager opponents seize on this semantic ambiguity as an admission of guilt. It’s a fanciful argument. The killings were two-way and they were indeed madness. The president is right to describe them as such.
The objective political question is to discover whose madness the President was referring to. It is rather simplistic to assume that Mugabe was attacking his own office and government when he made that statement. He was not.
On November 28, 1987, the New York Times published a special report on Zimbabwe. The report led with the story of a savage massacre that was carried out by dissidents. Eight white Pentecostal missionaries and children were brutally slaughtered.
Kirby, of the Commercial Farmers Union, unequivocally blamed the dissidents and complained that the violence had gone on for too long. At the time there was never a question of whether or not dissidents existed.
At the time the orthodoxy recognised the dissidents as an armed Matebele rebel group. Their aim was to protest the unfair treatment of Nkomo as well as his Ndebele supporters. This was the position held by both Western and African governments. The dissidents were real. That narrative now seems to be undergoing creative reinterpretation but one cannot rewrite history.
Geoff Nyarota was at the time working as editor of Chronicle. In one article he demanded that the government of Robert Mugabe “hit them hard.” Who was he referring to? His opponents, in the mold of men like Brilliant Mhlanga, claim he was urging the security forces to attack “innocent civilians who were being butchered by the Fifth Brigade.” This is nonsense. He was talking about the dissidents.
Drawing back to the analysis by journalist Andrew Meldrum in the New York Times, he said: “Western diplomats in the region say the dissidents are believed to be receiving supplies and training from neighboring South Africa. Some weapons have been traced to South Africa, and Radio Truth, a station that supports the dissidents, is beamed into Zimbabwe from South Africa.”
He added:“The dissidents have selected white farmers as targets to gain international attention, to discredit the Mugabe Government and to earn the support of poor black peasants who live near large prosperous white farms.”
That last point is important. It points out that the dissidents wooed the support of poor black peasants. The reader will recognise that it is almost impossible for a guerilla movement to survive without aid from the local community. Whether that support is given of free volition or through coercion is an entirely different matter.
This is why Ian Smith began a concerted effort to drive peasants into Keeps. He recognised that the Freedom Fighters were getting essential support from the locals. Without this aid they could not hide and they could not eat.
History gives a clear account of how the Rhodesian forces dealt with villagers who were found to have assisted the terrorists, as the white settlers preferred to call them. People were beaten, maimed and sometimes killed.
The same was true of the dissidents. They received aid from the local population. This is fact. We can argue the degree of that support but not as to whether or not it existed. Denying it is nothing short of self-imposed intellectual amnesia. Whether or not this support was offered of free volition or out of coercion is open to debate.
I could carry on pointing out to fact upon fact that makes clear that dissidents were a real security threat but that is needless. Any objective analyst can look through historical records and quickly establish the facts of the matter. Others who subscribe to adolescent conspiracy theories will tell us that dissidents did not exist.
Let us assume that dissidents did not exist and this was all a clever ploy by Mugabe. The question is what were his intentions? Why did he do it? Surely it was not merely a game for the sport of it; the man must have had a motive for carrying out such actions.
One conspiracy holds that this was Mugabe’s attempt at genocide in the style of Hitler’s extermination of the Jews. He supposedly wanted to wipe out the Ndebele people. It’s an idiotic argument but this has not stopped it getting traction.
If this was indeed Mugabe’s aim why did he stop? There was nothing standing in his way. The international community was fully behind him. He had the security services at his full disposal as well as rowdy Shonas who could be readily conscripted into service if the need arose. So why did the evil old ogre not exterminate the Ndebeles as the conspiracy theory goes?
Another equally absurd argument says that Mugabe recognised Nkomo’s political abilities and feared that he would lose an election to him. The Gukurahundi killings were designed to dismantle his support.
At the very surface such an approach seems counter-productive. Instead of diminishing Nkomo’s support, the said killings served to solidify the region against Robert Mugabe who they viewed as the architect of the violence that swept across that region. No political strategist under heaven would suggest you brutalise your opponents’ supporters in the hope that they vote for you in the next election. It is just plain silly.
The truth of it is that Nkomo never stood a chance against Mugabe in an election. Even if Nkomo miraculously rose from the dead and ran for office, Robert Mugabe would win a decisive victory against him. It is the tribal nature of our politics. I am not here to argue the good or evil of this reality, I simply point out the facts as they stand.
Welshman Ncube is ten times the leader that Tsvangirai will ever be. However Tsvangirai will defeat him in any and every election even if the Shona electorate heard reports that the man had moved to new sexual heights and was now regularly mating with a donkey. Tribal politics! That is the fact of it.
So this notion that Mugabe somehow feared Nkomo on the political battlefield is just nonsense. It is important that we deal with the facts and put these silly arguments to rest once and for all. Gukurahundi was not genocide. There was never an attempt to exterminate the Ndebele people.
So what really happened? The same thing that happened in Iraq and is happening in Afghanistan, soldiers on the frontline overstep their mandate. We all saw those pictures of the torture that was carried out by American forces in Abu Ghraib.
In an effort to scare the Ndebele generality from assisting the dissidents, the security forces engaged in indiscriminate killings. This was partly out of frustration as they could not get their hands on the fast moving dissidents. This was wrong and yes crimes were certainly committed. However it is one thing to call for Bush to be tried for crimes against humanity but quite a stretch of things if one begins to charge that Bush was attempting to exterminate the Iraqi’s.
During the armed struggle for our independence, how many people were beaten to death or maimed by Rhodesian forces on the charge that they were supporting the freedom fighters? But we have never heard anyone charge that Ian Smith was attempting to exterminate the blacks. That would have been nonsense. It was war and in war bad things happen.
Some will point out to the mass graves with innocent civilians. I will point you to Chimoio and Nyadzonya. Some will point out the attacks on individuals in places like Gweru. I will point you to American soldiers who shot any male in sight after suffering the death of a colleague from an IED.
It was war, it is war! I do not stand here to argue the good or evil of it but simply to put the facts into perspective.
Gukurahundi was no genocide. Period!
Amai Jukwa is a loving mother of three. She respects Robert Mugabe, is amused by Tsvangirai and feels sorry for Mutambara.
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Mai Jukwa
The facts are quite straightforward:
1 - Dissidents were a threat to national security.
2 - Dissidents were given material support by black peasants in that region.
3 - Dissidents were attempting to wage a tribal civil war.
4 - Robert Mugabe's actions were in response to this dissident threat.
5 - The world supported Robert Mugabe's actions.
Others may wish the reality was not as straightforward and entertain foolish ideas about genocide and how Mugabe wanted to exterminate a particular tribe. This is nonsense.
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Songolina Jikijela
You can say that again bro, it was power achieved from a rowdy group that needed to be put in check. Mugabe did the right thing during that time and the problem was quickly contained.
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chigudo
If we as zimbabweans can not value the sanctity of life then we are no different from the Hitlers, Idi Amins, Pol Pots, Stalins, Bandas and Ceausescus we so much despise. When people start saying these things just happened and let bygones be bygones this does not solve the issue of physiological, mental, physical and spiritual scars endured by the victims even in our generation. Zanoo pee eff needs to seriously own up to this sad era of our history and culprits bought to book. The notion that people were killed in Nyadzona and Chimio yet still people were not brought to book under the guise of post independence reconciliation is still injustice laid squarely on the zanoids. Gukurahundi has been classified as genocide, the same applies to the the Marambatsvinas and Mavhotera Papi as there is a deliberate and systematic attempt to exterminate racial, cultural and political groups .Zanoids have a pechant of cover ups and an unquenchable desire of violence coupled with corruption, nepotism and tribalism these ingredients will serve to seriously expose their short commings sooner rather than later. Once zanoo pee eff is booted out of power there will be serious retribution and they know it….that is why being in the GNU it is their last chance saloon.
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ZackieBwerawa
Why leave out the lying duo of Blair and Bush in your list of those that "cannot value the sanctity of life"?
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chigudo
Blair and bush are actual HEROES they are saving this world from SATANIC ghadaffi and TALIBAN . they are heroes for removing tyrants
In fact very soon i hope they move out ZANU PF TRASH
WE WILL CALL IT MURAMBATSVINA 2
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AMGML63
Man get a job i say
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Cde Manesi
Did your brothers the dissidents respect the sanctity of life?
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chigudo
SINCE WHEN HAVE YOU CIO AND ZANU PF CARED FOR ANYONE
I CANT WAIT UNTIL THE DAY THE AMERICAN AND BRITISH FORCES COME RUMBLING IN AND TEAR YOU A NEW ANUS
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Gangarahwe Chimutsa
you are a day dreaming idiot. Kepp quiet you fool!
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chigudo
TO HELL WITH YOU ZANU PF DOG
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Gangarahwe Chimutsa
I mean your relatives?
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Gangarahwe Chimutsa
During which period was Robert Mugabe Knighted by the British?
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Grace Jones
Mai Jukwa from forum madness to sharing that in an article? zvimwe zvinhu itai zvishoma
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Elma Sabudo
It beggars belief why Zanu pf pests who lacks intellectual rigour are given platforms to spew utter rubbish ,just to perpetuate privilege status within this party at the expense of traumatised political victims who have not healed .
Catholic bishops carried out two enquiries to the extent findings were suppressed by Zanu ,just like 2008 political violence .
The healing process was straight up fraudently which lacked institutional frame work ,victim based ,but cacophony rhetoric by Mugabe ,if Gukurahundi was not a crime then let us open an enquiry ?.
Robert Mugabe is clinical narcissist ,angry about his father and has killed every ethnic represented by the Zimbabwe flag ,form kwa Bulawayo ,minorities ( White farmers ) to all Malawian third generation immigrants in the cities .This man has no respect for human life ,even his own circle has been felled by his hand .Like all other genocidal leaders including all the planners like Amai Jukwa must be stopped and hold accountable for his past crimes .
VERMIN LIKE AMAI JUKWA ARE PLANNERS BEHIND ZIMBABWE VIOLENT HISTORY AFTER INDEPENDENCE ,HELL BENT TO DRIVE A WEDGE ON SOUND HEALING PROCESS .AND SINCE THIS " THING " HAS BLATANTLY DENIED SUCH ATROCITIES .WHEN THE TIME COMES THEY SHALL BE PUT TO TASK REFERENCING THIS ARTICLE NOW CACHED ON INTERNET .
MR MODERATOR BRAVO FOR FIRST POSITION TO THE BOTTOM .YOU SHOULD BE VERY PROUD .
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Cde Manesi
Kupenga hakuridze bhera,uye kunotoonekwa nevamwe,kwete naiye mupengi.
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chigudo
Bloody homosexual, filthy, smelly rotten puussy, piece of ZANU garbage CDE MANESI***. You are the reason why some of our MDC African brothers view Morgan Tsvangison as a hero, indeed if he got a few ***s like u out of the way and back to where they belong , indeed each day that you remain in the mdc motherland you should be scared, because anytime we will come for your filthy zanu
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Tendausaru Mupfanechoya
you lost it chigudo, this is not the way to present yourself to the Global Village and God.You stoop so low here like a kindergaarten kid.
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Jenderenhunzi Surekwembudzi
WAZVIONA SEI KUTI ANE ROTTEN PUSSY? NDIWE UNOTORI NGOCHANI PANO. MUGABE HAATOMBODI KUNZWA NEZVECHINGOCHANI, NDOSAKA VACHIMUOMESERA.
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Elma Sabudo
Perps of violence are within our mists well known ,in fact top Zimbabwe Security echelons.The youths whom you armed since Gukurahundi to date are not that patriotic nor smart either .You should have taught them deceptive methods when conversing with strangers over a beer drink and a tummy tuck .
Mugabe is 88 ,sleeps during every meeting and wet his trousers so are the old Zanu old bags .
We want planners the likes of Savior and Mai Jukwa responsible for post independence atrocities .Continue to chase elephants with butterfly nets ,very soon we will shall know.Already you have halted land grabs .Dont worry son .Catch you later .
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Somerset Masikati
@ Elma. Bear with the gentleman if he does that he will die of poverty. Here is how the game works: 1 - The Editor promotes controversial news stories that trigger a deluge of responses; 2 - The responses translate into "hits" and the Editor gets paid & beats poverty. 3 - "Hits" bring advertisers & bingo, the Editor gets paid again! He can only practice the type of journalism you're referring to if he has a rich benefector, so I'm afraid you're being naive. All he needs to do to beat poverty is to play Zanu PF against the MDC fullstop. I don't blame him, though it's frustrating on occasions
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GreenBomber
My question for u woman is; did Nkomo, Ndabaningi & Tsvangirai ever plot to assassinate Mugabe .... the answer is No; they were just being framed by a dictator trying to monopolise political space .... in this light; how do u know that these dissidents were not just CIO agents just creating an excuse for Mugabe to meet his trabalistic ends, for how do u explain less than 50 dissidents terrorizing a country with an army as big as that of Zimbabwe for 5 yrs. How do u explain the death of thousands of people dying over the "rebellion" of only 50 people. And why were these dissidents never brought to justice or killed if they had no ties to Zanu pf.
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AMGML63
Man, you're all over the place, sometimes you support Zanu sometimes not, kungoda arguing chete?
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Jenderenhunzi Surekwembudzi
HOW DID YOU COME TO KNOW THAT THEY WERE ONLY FIFTY DISSIDENTS, WERE YOU ONE OF THEM? ANOTHER THING IS THAT THREE WELL ARMED MEN CAN AFFORD TO TERRORISE AND TORTURE THE WHOLE VILLAGE. YOU MAY FIND OUT THAT AMERICA SPENT HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS AND SWARMS OF SOLDIERS HUNTING FOR ONE MAN, OSAMA. IN ALL COUNTRIES BE IT IN REALITY OR MOVIES ONE MAN CAN CAUSE QUITE A STIR AND THOUSANDS OF POLICE AND ARMY TROOPS MAY BE DEPLOYED TO GET HOLD OF THAT ONE PERSON ONLY. One man can kill a million aggressors to protect himself alone if he has the means. Each and every life lost to the dissidents was very important and thousands of other people might have died whilst trying to save those whose lives were at stake.
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Somerset Masikati
These facts are also straightforward:
1 - The Fifth Brigade was established outside Constitutional parameters and only answerable to Robert Mugabe.
2 - Those targeted and killed only spoke a certain language.
3 - At the time Mugabe openly used inciteful and hate filled language, just as he does know.
4 - The Fifth Brigade operated outside of normal Army structures. Even today there is no such a Brigade suggesting a clearly sinister agenda.
5 - A disproportionately large militia was used to contain a disproportionately small threat.
6 - You have admitted that innocent women and children were indiscriminately and unlawfully maimed and killed and drawn a comparison with the American experience but where is the redress in Zwe?
7 - While in America the perpetrators were prosecuted in Zwe Shiri et al were lauded as heroes and promoted leading to the current impunity we see today.
8 - Mugabe commissioned the Chihambakwe Commission yet its report never saw the light of day why? Is this the behaviour of an innocent person?
9 - The same approach used during Gukurahundi continues to be used today. In March 2008 didn't Mugabe say "a mere pen / X cannot defeat a bullet?"
10 - The West supported Mugabe because a) of the Cold War politics at the time; b) It was a still newly independent nation and he was given the benefit of the doubt; c) There was a State of Emergency and Mugabe controlled the flow of the information!
11 - What is the "political strategy" behind the killings in April - June 2008? Or is it just "plain silliness"?
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Jacques Marneweck
9- A clear point that Mugabe only respects violence and never had any respect for the people of Zim.
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Somerset Masikati
@ Jacques - true that. I would add that:
1 - Mugabe is a power hungry dictator given to wanting to retain power by all
means necessary.
2 - Mugabe has meted the same treatment to all political opponents since 1980. It is his modus operandi.
3 - He holds an irrational fear towards all political opponents. His response is not shaped by how credible a threat a political opponent is towards him but by the mere fact that a political opponent dares oppose him, the "mighty" Robert Mugabe and wants to displace him and usurp his power.
4 - The passage of time naturally increases the size of victims and makes
relinquishing power untenable for fear of reprisals making the process "cyclical".
5 - Once he dies, there is a risk that those in his "cabal" will also try to repeat this process.
6 - This is why we are stuck with him & the evil system that he has built! So yes, Mugabe committed genocide and MLF, while misplaced is a direct result of his actions!
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Rinopisa Chogugudza
A responsible news editor would have put the headline of this irresponsible article as "Was Gukurahundi A Genocide". Allowing Zanuists to make sweeping statements that touch nerves as these will have a backlash on this publication. Judging from the last few articles allowed space here, It simply exposes the owners Mathuthu and Madzingo as Zanu sympathises. For starters, I will no longer put any adverts on this news website. I have removed Newzimbabwe from bieng my home page.
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Somerset Masikati
@ Rinopisa. Bear with the gentleman if he does that he will die of poverty. Here is how the game works: 1 - The Editor promotes controversial news stories that trigger a deluge of responses; 2 - The responses translate into "hits" and the Editor gets paid & beats poverty. 3 - "Hits" bring advertisers & bingo, the Editor gets paid again! He can only practice the type of journalism you're referring to if he has a rich benefector, so I'm afraid you're being naive. All he needs to do to beat poverty is to play Zanu PF against the MDC fullstop. I don't blame him, though it's frustrating on occasions.
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Rinopisa Chogugudza
Lets agree then that this editor has behaved similarly to bieng a paid referee in a contest where two neighbours shit on each doorsteps and their neighbours watching.
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chigudo
AMAI JUKWAi is that why your mother is a ZANU porn star who would even do a bestiality porn movie just to prove that you are the sibling of eddie the ZANU BRED horse. She thought by doing with a ZANU bred horse that would probably add some brain matter to your under developed brains. Both of you AND JUKWA are just displaying how thick as your mothers fannies you are. You guys have given us the ZANU PF blueprint of how to build a ZANU PF IDIOT and thats both of you……………kaboooooooooom.
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Rinopisa Chogugudza
Genocide or not genocide, there is no justification to murder 20k civilians in a war or no war situation. This level of self confessed madness simply demonstrates that those who made the confession were and are not in sound mind to have or continue presiding over a government in any country. The state of affairs in Zimbabwe is clear testimony that a man who has confessed to madness was allowed to continue running the highest office in Zimbabwe. Its also unfortunate that the plague of madness has continued to spread hence you see the likes of Mai Jukwa.
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sublatern
loooool the world supported Mugabe's actions?? what in gods name does this spin doctress smoke??next thing you will be telling me bush was right to wage the middle east war because the so called "world" was by his side.kindergarten reasoning at best
the fact that you clowns have been trying to absolve your leader of any blame for the last 25 years serves to show that deep down your conscious awareness is at logger heads with what you purport on this site
you cant sugar coat it mate you and your evil tyran leader are going to hell.
One thing for sure. Zanu will NEVER win in Matebeleland .NEVER in all infinite lifetime.We know that hurts you.
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Mozart
You should be glad as grotesque as you views are your government and your northern brothers and sisters share your views 20000% you are speaking for the majority as a result they are just cowards to just say it. I guess they will sleep better tonight knowing that one them has shared their feelings.
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chigudo
MUGABE DEATH IN OFFICE. The second route is when they pass away in office. Initially, the death notice is greeted with mournful grief and uncontrollable wailing in memory of the departed leader. BUT IN OUR CASE WE WILL BE HAPPY AND OVER JOYED WHEN MUGABE DIES But most often it is crocodile tears that are shed. A few days later, champagne bottles are uncorked, serious partying, wild celebration and joy erupt in some quarters. The village brass band blows up a storm with chickens doing the “Disco Duck.” Then suddenly the music stops – that’s when the next “rat” takes over power. Here is the list:
1. Gabriel Léon M’ba of Gabon died of cancer in Nov 1967
2. Houari Boumedienne of Algeria died of a rare blood disease in Dec 1978
3. Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya died of natural causes in Aug 1978
4. Agostinho Neto of Angola died in 1979
5. Samora Moisés Machel of Mozambique died in a helicopter crash in 1986
6. Seyni Kountché of Niger died of brain tumor in Nov 1987.
7. Felix Houphouet-Boigny of Ivory Coast died of prostate cancer in Dec 1993
8. Gnassingbe Eyadema of Togo died of heart attack in Feb 2005
9. Levy Patrick Mwanawasa of Zambia died from stroke in August 2008
10. Lasana Conte of Guinea died in Dec 2008
11. Omar Bongo of Gabon died of heart attack/cancer in June 2009
12. Bingu wa Mutharika of Malawi died of a heart
attack in April 2012
13 ROBERT GABRIEL MUGABE- TESTICULAR CANCER 26 NOVEMBER 2013
YES PLEASE
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chigudo
Your mother broke custom and opened up to your rodent eating mother conceived and gave birth to an even more retarded idiot THAT IS JUKWA. Whoever said law must not be applied in retrospect must have been your relative otherwise your father would be in jail for KILLING INNOCENT CIVILLIANS Since you are grown up and abortion can not practicaly be performed you will have to be hanged as you are a product of rape. IT COULD POSSIBLY BE THAT YOU WERE RAPED BY MA GADEN BOYI
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chigudo
1 ZANU PF IS A THREAT TO NATIONAL SECURITY
2- ZANU PF IS BEING SUPPORTED BY VOTE BUYING
3 ZANU PF CONTINUES TO WAGE WAR AND STEAL ELECTIONS
4 ROBERT MUGABE HAS DESTROYED THE JEWEL OF AFRICA
5 THE WORLD IS AGAINST ROBERT MUGABE
6 TO HELL WITH YOUR ARTICLE OF RUBBISH MURDER IS MURDER AND THE WHOLE WORLD KNOW THIS WAS GENOCIDE
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chigudo
More than 20 000 innocent people are believed to have been murdered by members of the North Korea-trained Fifth Brigade
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AMGML63
Where do you fit in? You are the only mkeda i know with political issues, hehe
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chigudo
WHERE DO YOU FIT IN WITH THE KILLING OF 20 0000 CIVILLIANS
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AMGML63
I was an infant. You still didnt answer my question.
I also think you're trying to cause a rift between two great tribes. It wont work because you're a nobody, with no job in addition.
You are trying to incite tribal hatred through the internet, without even disclosing your identity, i pity you.
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chigudo
Forgiving Mugabe is out of question.He has killed a lot of people, wht would they think and feel if that murderer walks free? Thousands of people have died and they are still dieing.I will not vote for forgiving him.He deserves no mercy at all.
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chigudo
There is nothing legitimate about MUGABEi and ZANU PF. They are both POWER HUNGRYwhose real strength lies in the appalling mess made WHEN THEY ORDERED GENOCIDE AND KILLED 20 000 CIVILIANS
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Tsvatu
Your article really is a good way to see who was wrong when it comes to the topic:"Gukurahundi", i really hope u continue to shed more light to us on the topic because some us just don't know what really happened.
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gynaacologist
Could you please check in at my offices in Avenues immmediately. You seem to be displaying symptoms of a severe candida infection that is spreading into your brain. In the meantime while you are still trying to find your way there I recommend that you take large quantities of yourghut with active culture, it helps to restore your microbial balance down there subduing some of the symptoms in the process especially the itchness that causes you to be restless and pensive leading to hallucinations. Your condition makes you insensitive to the plight of other people, you are inconsiderate of how your words will make the next person feel.
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Nicholas Banda
The research conducted by the writer derives from sources written by other so called historians, who for their own purpose of writing chose to narrate and project the image that there was no genocide in Zimbabwe.
Further to that the writer fails to analyse the information he obtained as to what was the purpose and who was intended to receive and be brain washed by such information.I wont go into the gukurahundi atrocities in detail but I can only feel sorry for the writer who in this day and age has failed to rise above partisan and polarized politics based on tribal orientations. It is the people like the writer who continue to drag Zimbabwe backwards with hogwash and unwarranted stories, that continue to poison anything to do with Zimbabwe.While the whole world is looking for better economic stability and growth, the writer continues with his filth and vulgar views about history that can never be changed.
We all know what happened in Zimbabwe during the gukurahundi and for now let us leave it that. Jukwa or who ever is behind this article should divert his intellectual effort and contribute ideas that will assist Zimbabwe to have a sustainable economic growth and be competitive with the rest of the world.I don't know what planet the writer lives on but, potholes and lack of healthcare, coupled with poor economic growth warrants such discussion to take place.
So in conclusion Ms Jukwa or who ever, stop trying to sell yourself short and contribute positively to the well being of your country. As for Mugabe and his cohorts, their day will come.Mugabe is not too far away from meeting his maker so you can be assured that he knows and is aware of his sins.
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Ras
Wataura apa mface. When has killing unarmed and defenseless civilians ever been called a war. Zanu people have an obsession of comparing themselves to America. Who said people didn't die in chimoi and other places in Mozambique. It doesn't change the fact that Mugabe killed 20 000+ Zimbabweans in Matabeleland and the midlands. Zanu people are known for singing for their supper, Mai jukwa is no different. We cannot change history ,Mai jukwa. Truth be said,Mugabe has killed a lot more people over the years by depriving us of food and a decent healthcare and chocking us on these deathtraps we call highways and roads.Knowing zanu as much as I do,they will find some accidents in America to justify the carnage here in Zimbabwe. We have this one Mpofu guy on a pledging spree. He is pledging to assist in each and every cause in Zimbabwe. Like a doctor who poisons you so that he can cure you he forgets that his looting is the reason why we are so poor. Because he is zanu, he compares himself to FEMA.
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Malikongwa
This is a highly offensive piece authored by some clueless half-wit trying to seek relevance. I wonder why the editors entertain such divisive hogwash, dont you understand that real people with families were killed? This website surely has gone to the dogs!!
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Mozart
Because we are still in the 1980 election mode. Ncube exist and tribalism has to be used to arise the negative feelings about him and his party. So as to leave the 2 other men. They dislike Ncube but don't fear him. All they are doing is evoking the tribal card to quickly casting him aside. The writer knows Nkomo was the national leader we needed but our Northern brothers what can I say where quickly persuaded otherwise. It's nothing new.
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Somerset Masikati
@ Malikongwa. Bear with the gentleman if he does that he will die of poverty. Here is how the game works: 1 - The Editor promotes controversial news stories that trigger a deluge of responses; 2 - The responses translate into "hits" and the Editor gets paid & beats poverty. 3 - "Hits" bring advertisers & bingo, the Editor gets paid again! He can only practice the type of journalism you're referring to if he has a rich benefector, so I'm afraid you're being naive. All he needs to do to beat poverty is to play Zanu PF against the MDC fullstop. I don't blame him, though it's frustrating on occasions
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truth0001
W Ncube is 10 times the leader Tsvangirai can ever be!!!! i totally agree with that!!! this makes me ashamed to be zimbabwean when they would not vote for ncube because of tribalism. i also think that Ncube needs to strategise on his marketing, i have repeately said he has not really taken advanage of his corrupt free image. he should not waste time attacking zanu..because MDC/T does that for him..Ncube MUST focus on attacking protest vote and present his party as the alternative, that way he will wing a more MP seats in cities and possibky become leader of the opposition..and in next elections of 2018 he would leap onto zanu's rural strong holds and can become president of zimbabwe. i can sleep well with ncube zimbabwe president BUT can never sleep if tsvangirai happens to be president, as that flip floper can be easily tricked to sell a whole country to the west...willy nilly..
ncube needs large placards that read , NO TO PROTEST VOTE, his election slogan just has to be that, that simple...and so lets not use tribalism to excuse his inability to correctly strategise his election...DONT RUSH TO USE TRIBALISM, obama worked real hard to win electios and until we are REALLY satisfied that Ncube has done his best then we can cry tribalism
Labels: GUKURAHUNDI
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Gukurahundi: Both sides should apologise
Saturday, 21 July 2012 20:26
Former Zanu-PF Politburo member
Cde Dumiso Dabengwa (DD) stunned many people when he left the party to re-launch Zapu. Before people could understand what was going on, he declared his support for Simba Makoni during the 2008 presidential elections. Our
Assistant Editor Munyaradzi Huni (MH) went to Bulawayo last week and sat down with the “Black Russian” to discuss these issues. For the first time, Cde Dabengwa speaks frankly about the dissident and Gukurahundi eras.
MH: Cde Dabengwa, people would want to know, in your own words, who exactly is Dumiso Dabengwa?
DD: That’s very difficult to answer. I am myself, I am the same person I was all along and I have not changed.
MH: Ok, what person have you been all along?
DD: Well, I have been myself and I believe in being myself.
MH: Where exactly does Cde Dumiso Dabengwa trace his roots?
DD: Well, I trace my roots from my parents. Born at Ntabazinduna reserve and I trace my roots from my upbringing as a young person, meeting different people who became renowned politicians at a later stage like (the late VP) Nkomo who was at Tsholotsho school called Mavela Training College. It was a skills training college for agriculture, leather work, carpentry, building, etc, and my father was an agriculture instructor at the school.
MH: Where did you grow up?
DD: I grew up there, saw people like JZ Moyo, Joshua Nkomo. I was very young then and they told me I did not even recognise them, but they interacted with my family and they knew me. Nkomo used to tell me that he used to handle me as a baby and each time he held me I would wet on him, and we laughed about it. I went to Mzingwane after that, from Mzingwane that is where my parents were teaching, then to Ngwenya Mission (John Tallach), from Ngwenya mission they left and this was a Presbyterian missionary school, then they went to Serima Mission school, this was an Anglican school, from Serima they went to Kutama where I met the likes of Charles Chikerema and a number of people that became prominent businesspeople and politicians. From there I went to Thekwane Mission, which was Methodist. On my matriculation again I met a number of people, Zvobgo, Hove and a number of other people who became prominent politicians in the country.
MH: Are you from Mat North or from the Midlands, where exactly do you come from?
DD: No, my roots are in Ntabazinduna under Chief Khayisa (Ndiweni), Bubi District.
MH: Cde Dabengwa, what influenced you to join the liberation struggle?
DD: A number of things really. First it was way back at Kutama when I was doing my junior certificate and we read magazines and saw what was happening in South Africa and compare it to what was happening at home. Nkomo came to Kutama mission and I was still young then and so it did not really make much sense then except to know this was Nkomo, the same Nkomo that used to carry me at Tsholotsho and he also visited later on at Thekwane and by then we were grown up. As students we noted what he said when he addressed us on a casual, informal way at Thekwane. He told us what to look forward to unless we worked to support the struggle for the emancipation for our people. He said the future would be bleak for us. And I remembered those words very well. And later when I then started working first as a temporary teacher just for one year at Serima Mission where I taught the likes of Lookout Masuku and then came to Bulawayo and worked for the Bulawayo City Council as a clerk in the welfare office. When the ANC leadership was arrested and the ANC was banned, a number of people were detained at Khami Prison and people from here, people from Malawi like Aleck Banda, for instance, and people from Zambia were detained at Khami Prison. All the relatives that came to see these people were passing through our office and I was made in charge of registering the visitors to Khami Prison.
MH: What ideology do you believe in, Cde Dabengwa?
DD: Difficult again to talk about ideology. I believe in social justice.
MH: Tell us more about Dumiso Dabengwa, the freedom fighter.
DD: Well, it was during this period as a clerk in the social welfare office when I began following the ANC. I was not a member of the ANC but we went to their meetings just to listen and we were beginning to appreciate the things they were saying. Later on I got a job at a bank and I got a practical experience of being discriminated. I was working in the bank with my qualifications which were just as good, if not better than some of my white colleagues, but I earned half the salary of what a white colleague earned and that drew my attention to the real discrimination that was taking place. I got the feeling we had to do something. There was no need to complain. There was nowhere to present your case and the only way we realised was to fight for it.
That led me to join the liberation struggle and joining the youth movement in the first place and participating in a number of activities in the NDP youth organisation and later on Zapu and later on being one of the volunteers to go and train.
MH: Where did you go and receive your training from?
DD: We got to a stage where after the attempts by our organisation ZEN to try and solve the problems of the country peacefully, we realised that the regime was not prepared to give in. (Ian Douglas) Smith pronounced words like “there would never be majority rule in his life time” and that told us that there was no way we were going to get what we wanted unless we fought for it. We actually pushed the leadership to say enough is enough and we are ready for the struggle.
MH: So where did you go for your training?
DD: I went through Zambia and after Zambia we were sent out to the Soviet Union, that is where we trained.
MH: We hear that you were nicknamed the “Black Russian.” How did this come about?
DD: That nickname came later on in the ’70s towards the end of the liberation struggle when Zimbabwe security forces, the Selous Scouts, invaded a place which we called Rome and we had nicknamed it The Vatican where the intelligence headquarters were in Zambia. They bombed the house and later on searched the house where they found some documents relating to our training in the Soviet Union. They claimed that they had destroyed the headquarters of the Black Russian.
MH: So when this building was bombed you were actually there?
DD: I was supposed to have been there, but the night before Lookout Masuku insisted that I should not be staying at the house. I left the house during the night without them realising that I had left and they came in the early hours of the morning and bombed the place.
MH: Cde Dabengwa, some people say during the liberation struggle you were more in the intelligence rather than a commander. How do you explain your role during the liberation struggle?
DD: I was the chief in reconnaissance, which is military intelligence. I did all the reconnaissance of the crossing routes from Kazungula right across the border. I walked almost every mile of that river looking for the best crossing places for our comrades. I would say from the time we returned from 1965 up to the early ’70s I was responsible for reconnaissance work. The big battles that we had, the operations we had with the ANC, the Hwange Operation, the Sipolilo Operations, I was responsible for making sure that the two operations were carried out smoothly and passed without any interception by the enemy.
MH: So would you say you were more of an intelligence officer than a commander?
DD: When you are in the military, I don’t know how you separate it, you are talking about the commander in a battlefield and you are talking about another aspect which is reconnaissance which is intelligence. No battles would succeed if there has been no preparation, intelligence information about how the comrades should proceed. Military intelligence is the precursor to the military operations, they prepare the ground for the military to be able to come in and battle it out. Later on I covered the entire intelligence aspect of the party.
MH: Which were some of the key operations that you participated in during the liberation struggle?
DD: Well, right from the beginning, as I said, it was the reconnaissance of the crossing routes, and I have mentioned the two battles — the Hwange Operation, that is where my head got injured. I worked with Chris Hani as he was the intelligence officer in the ANC in South Africa and so we worked together. I was supposed to have taken his team across right up to the Hwange National Park but got injured in the process. A few months after that we were then engaged in the Sipolilo Operation.
MH: During the liberation struggle what was your relationship with comrades like Nikita Mangena, people like Lookout Masuku because we also hear that during the liberation struggle there was a fight for the leadership of Zipra?
DD: No, there was never any fight. Our first commander was Ackim Ndlovu; from 1965 to around 1970 he was the commander. After that it was Nikita Mangena. When Nikita Mangena came that is the time we had established the revolutionary council and that is when the name Zipra came in (Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army). When Mangena became the commander, we then formed the war council which was chaired first by JZ Moyo and it was also chaired by Chikerema. No, no by
the time Mangena came in, it was chaired by Jason Moyo because Chikerema had left. I was the chief of intelligence as well as secretary to the revolutionary council. A few years after that, Nkomo came in and took over as head of the army as well as commander-in-chief of the army, Zipra. Then there was a war council formed that was chaired by Nkomo, deputised by the late Munodawafa and I was secretary to the war council.
MH: So in terms of seniority by training. . .
DD: In terms of seniority I was senior to them both (Nikita Mangena and Lookout Masuku), I was always above them. I was always senior to them. There was never any fight in Zapu because commanders were by appointment and there was no way you could fight to take over the command of the army. You were appointed into that position and that is it.
MH: Some time ago I read a book by Ken Flower where he wrote that it was easy to fight the Zipra forces because they believed in fighting in large numbers and because of the airpower of the Rhodesian forces it was easy to “harvest” these forces. What do you say to this statement by Ken Flower?
DD: No, Ken Flower was writing exactly like a person who did not participate in the battle. Our strategy in fighting beginning from the ’60s was to send small units. One section of men, which usually comprised of about eight men. We later increased the number to the level of a platoon, which is about three sections which would be between 24 and 30. That’s how they operated and they never operated in bigger numbers. It was only towards the end of the ’70s, 78-79, when Nkomo came up with the strategy in 1977 which he termed the turning point and the idea of the turning point came about as the result of the semi-liberated areas. These were areas where the Rhodesian forces would no longer come because they knew that if they came they would not have it easy. Nkomo said we now must take the battle right into the interior of the country so we started training battalions which would comprise from almost 600 to 800 men depending on the weapons that they were going to carry and these were trained in order to come into the semi-liberated areas and be able to take over those semi-liberated areas and run their administration.
The guerillas would continue pushing into the interior of the country and these battalions would move in to defend the semi-liberated areas. So Ken Flower does not know what he was writing about.
MH: Cde Dabengwa, you spoke about the Hwange campaign, when you look back do you think the Hwange campaign was a success considering the casualties you suffered during this campaign?
DD: This battle has been completely misconstrued by people both here at home and including by people in South Africa. This happened at the insistence of the ANC in South Africa. At that time the ANC had been using the route through Botswana and they had given instructions to their men, their guerillas, that please if you are stopped by the Botswana police or the army, don’t fire at them, surrender. We don’t want to fight our own brothers. So each time they were going through this route, they would be intercepted by Botswana police, captured, taken in, charged, put into prison and, after serving their prison terms, be sent back into Zambia. They got tired of that. Meanwhile, the South African military police were now patrolling along the Zambezi River because they wanted to understand how the guerillas operated. So the South African military police joined hands with their Rhodesian counterparts. The ANC then said, look, we would rather send our men through
Rhodesia than through Botswana because in Botswana they can’t fight back when intercepted. In Rhodesia, the South Africans are already there fighting together with the Rhodesians against Zipra and so we might as well join hands with Zipra to cross through. If our forces are intercepted by those forces we can fight together with the Zipra forces, but the idea was to cross. In the Hwange Operation there were at least 30 ANC comrades against almost 60 Zipra comrades.
MH: Away from that campaign, Cde Dabengwa, how would you describe your relationship with the late Vice-President Nkomo?
DD: I knew Nkomo when I was in the NDP youth, we worked under him similarly in Zapu, he led us except during the break when they were in detention back home and we remained in Zambia. I found him a very fascinating man first from our youth days when we used at times to accompany him to meetings and we played the hide-and-seek games. For instance, I remember one time he was going to address a rally in Nkayi and we would make a plan and say we need a decoy. He would send some people in his usual car, let them go on the official route towards the venue of the meeting in Nkayi and he would use another car that they would not expect him to be in.
Nkomo played these games with the police. He was also very fatherly, he would listen, he liked calling the youths together trying to find out what their aspirations were, what they wanted to do and so on. When we pushed him that we wanted to go for training, he was very emphatic in getting us to understand what we wanted to do. He told us that once you are holding a gun, whether you fire or not, those guys will fire at you, are you ready for it? He got us to understand how to organise ourselves and be able to do things, like sabotage secretly without anyone knowing.
MH: How would you describe your relationship with the late VP Msika?
DD: VP Msika was a disciplinarian, we worked with him, he was in charge of the youth movement, a very dynamic person. If you did not listen, Msika would take you on, he would really box you.
MH: Cde Dabengwa, let’s now turn to the dissident era. What is your understanding of what happened during this period?
DD: The dissident era has remained completely unanswered to a very large extent to me. However, what was obvious was that when we started the integration exercise, some of the developments that took place then were certainly very unsatisfactory to Zipra, and it was very evident that they would lead to disgruntlement of Zipra comrades. For instance, we agreed right at the beginning that as the forces integrated the most capable ones would be rewarded if they wanted to remain in the army and so it was mainly those guys who had already trained into the regular battalions of Zipra that volunteered to go into integration. When they went into that integration exercise most of the Zipra forces came out tops because by that time they were already well trained to fit easily into the army. However, the Zanla comrades complained when the Zipra comrades always excelled, and it was decided that if number 5 unit of the battalion is headed by Zipra, number 6 must be headed by Zanla. They said don’t worry about their capabilities, so you had guys who were better off, better trained, being commanded by guys who were not as good. That caused a bit of the problems. As these things started happening, you would find Zipra guys being accused of this and that and finally being thrown out of the army.
MH: So this led to the dissident era?
DD: That led to the dissident era. There are guys, for instance, up to this day who have been fighting for their case as a battalion, there were about 60 of them in one battalion and they were just being accused of something that was not a fault of their own, and they were thrown out.
MH: What role did you play during this era?
DD: I left during the integration exercise. I left more or less when the first phase of the integration had been completed. During the second part of it that’s when these problems started showing and I had then decided I was leaving. There was Rex Nhongo (the late Cde Solomon Mujuru) as commander. Rex was my junior; he was recruited by Zipra; he was trained by Zipra; then he defected to go to Zanla. He was under us. Tongogara was my counterpart, I had no objection for him to lead me, because we trained almost at the same time. We went through everything together, we used to work together and there was no problem. I would not have objected to falling under Tongogara’s leadership, neither would he have objected falling under my leadership, but when it was Rex, it was a different piece of cake altogether. So I said I would rather retire and I left Masuku to take my place. Masuku was a commander of the Zipra forces already so I decided to give back the army to Masuku.
MH: So when you left the army, what were you doing?
DD: I retired and came to Bulawayo and started a business. We actually started a business with other colleagues who were out in Zambia doing their own things, one was working with the railways and the other one had been a farmer in Zambia. We got together, formed a company and we were going to go into business.
MH: Cde Dabengwa, we hear that during the dissident era there were so many atrocities that were committed. We were young at that time, and we really want to understand what exactly happened?
DD: Well, I didn’t see much of that myself because it was at that stage after I left the army. To my surprise we heard that the intelligence, the Rhodesian Intelligence officers, started talking about arms caches in some of the areas that were camped by Zipra. We knew that after the disturbances which occurred in some of the camps, Chitungwiza, for instance, another one in Kwekwe, Entumbane, after those fights between Zipra and Zanla, some arms were cached. It was after I had left, there were arms caches everywhere. Zanla had arms caches at the farms around the Goromonzi area where they had a camp. Some were caching in weapons so that they will be able to use them for criminal activities like robbery, for instance, quite a few cases of that nature, but there was also the caching in of the arms because there was a lot of mistrust. The Rhodesians had said in other places once we have managed this integration process successfully and because at integration they were surrendering their weapons, once you have surrendered your weapons, we are going to deal with you. So the caching of weapons was done by both sides as a result of mistrust of what the Rhodesians wanted to do and so at almost every camp there were weapons that were hidden both by Zipra and Zanla because we were not sure of what next was going to happen.
But there was also a deliberate element by the Rhodesian CIO which was mainly white at that time. This came out during our trial after we had been arrested and were thrown into Chikurubi, where the Rhodesians at one of our big camps, the Gwayi camp, where they led certain elements in Zipra, the guy who was a commander of Zipra and they got him to go and cache weapons. At that time, Zipra had started buying farms and they got him to go and cache in a lot of weapons at a farm in the Gweru area, some of the weapons were cached at the Zipra farm which is along the Khami Road. It later came out in court that the Rhodesian intelligence CIO had deliberately tried to have Zapu accused. They cached those weapons in order to say that we were plotting to overthrow the government. Neither Masuku nor myself knew about those plans, in actual fact it came out in court that guys who were responsible for caching out those weapons were doing that under the instructions of the commander, Ben Moyo, who said you hide these weapons and neither Dabengwa nor Masuku should know about it because they are sellouts, they are working with the government, and they must never get to know about it.
Later the same CIO guys then created a story and connected us to these arms and said those arms were cached under our instructions because we were in cahoots with Nkomo and we were working to overthrow the government. Our charge was treason for the attempt to overthrow the government, a story that was deliberately created by CIO.
(Emmerson) Mnangagwa himself was in charge of that CIO. After the discovery of those weapons, the police met and they agreed that there was a conspiracy by Zapu to overthrow the government and that is what happened. We got arrested and there were these guys in Zipra who had already been chucked out of the army, some of them disgruntled, who then said “what did we fight for?”
They said after all the sacrifice we are now being thrown into jail and some of the elements then started doing some robberies, sabotaging and in the process the army was sent after them and that’s what happened and that’s how dissidents got created.
We also now know, because even books have been written about it, that some of these guys who left were recruited by the South African intelligence and sent to South Africa, retrained by the SA army and these were the guys who were sent in as Super Zapu to fight against government forces and committed acts of sabotage and that sort of thing. So there was a mixture of disgruntled Zipra and guys who were saying our leaders have been arrested, we fought all these years and we are now nowhere and the guys that had been trained in SA who were doing it in order to destabilise Zimbabwe.
MH: Let’s turn to the Gukurahundi era, what also happened during this time?
DD: There was this dissident element, as I have already said, and government’s reaction rather than try and solve the dissident issue in a more objective manner they resorted to what was said, we were in prison, they said this was all a Zapu strategy and Zapu must be destroyed. They said we must first destroy its head and (Joshua) Nkomo became the target. They said every Ndebele is a dissident and therefore must be destroyed. That’s the Fifth Brigade which was trained by the Koreans. They went around killing innocent people, any young person was supposed to be a dissident and was supposed to be shot, women and old men who happened to be Ndebele in an area were said to be dissidents. That is what we understand happened. I was not there. I was in prison throughout that era.
MH: Why has Gukurahundi been turned into some political football at the expense of the people who really suffered?
DD: Because we failed to heal it properly. It’s like in a family, somebody kills a neighbour’s son, for instance, and that person all he can say is that person has been killed there is no apology for it and they want to leave it as it is. I don’t think there will be peace between those two families but if the other family comes along and says sorry our son is the one who killed your son we are sorry about it, this is really bad and it shouldn’t have happened. One must get that element of healing the wound and it can only be done when the other family sees that it has done the wrong thing and it apologises for it.
MH: But, Cde Dabengwa, the President described what happened as “a moment of madness.”
DD: Is that an apology? Do you call that an apology? When the amnesty was declared and even those people, the so-called dissidents, who were responsible for what happened, they should have offered an apology to the government for all that happened and the government was supposed to do the same. We should have a public apology from those dissidents that were operating at that time and then the element of healing should have immediately taken effect.
MH: So we have a situation where both sides have not apologised?
DD: The government has not apologised and the dissidents have not apologised. The victims remain bitter and, of course, people start politicising the issue. That is the unfortunate part of it. From my own point of view this is what should have happened.
MH: Is there a way we can harness all these emotions around the dissident and Gukurahundi era to create a strong post-colonial state?
DD: I remember after my release from Chikurubi, Nkomo telling me that they wanted to start this process, they went to one of the places in the Kezi area, where there is a mine shaft where people were thrown into and they were told by the people even the names of the people who were thrown into that shaft and showed the President. They said as leadership both him and the President should go there and have some of those people extracted. The President said he was going to be busy but (the late VP) Muzenda would come. However, after extracting some bodies from that area Nkomo waited for the whole day and Muzenda did not come until they decided to have the remains that had been extracted buried. This was part of the healing process which I am saying should have been done.
MH: But, Cde Dabengwa, finally on this issue of Gukurahundi, do you hold any grudges against anyone about what happened during that time?
DD: Look, when I got released from prison after almost five years and after going through 17 years in the bush during the armed struggle and I get back home, I get accused of a crime I did not commit. I am discharged by the High Court of the country but I am detained for five years. When I came out of that I said I would not forget what I went through but I hold no grudge against anybody and, similarly, over the Gukurahundi thing I don’t, but it is something that needs to be redressed and we would have failed if at the end of the day we all pass on having not resolved this unfortunate incident.
MH: Now, we move on, Cde Dabengwa, do you believe that Zimbabwe should remain a unitary state?
DD: Yeah, yes, certainly, it has been a unitary and it should remain a unitary state, but there should be some devolution of power.
MH: What is your definition of this devolution of power and how do you see it contributing towards nation building?
DD: Devolution is a very healthy manner of governing. You give all the participants in the different parts of the country a feeling they are participating in the governance of the country. That they are part and parcel of the decision- making process in the country because you give them the power to do that.
They are in charge of their natural resources, they benefit from those natural resources and it creates competition between the provinces or regions and they are able to interact with each other, copy from each other and work to outdo each other.
MH: But some people say Zimbabwe is too small for devolution and this may cause divisions in the country?
DD: Zimbabwe is by no means smaller than Cuba. Cuba recently adopted devolution. Switzerland is such a small country, but it has got a devolved governance, many countries have devolved governance. And, in actual fact, you find that there is more participation by the people in a devolved state, that is when people feel they are actually contributing to the actual governance of their own local area, but when everything is centralised, you have problems. Everything depends on what central government has to say.
MH: But don’t you think this issue has not been well received in some quarters because it has been presented a Matabeleland issue?
DD: I have travelled the whole country and I have found support for devolution of power in Masvingo, I have found it in Manicaland, I have found it in some parts of Mashonaland West where they would feel much better if they had devolved power. It’s not an issue for Matabeleland only. The other day under this democracy institute we were talking to other parties like Zanu Ndonga, we were talking to the Democratic Party, we were talking to MDC 99 by Job Sakala and all those parties are for devolution of power and they are not Matabeleland parties. So devolution is a very popular proposition from all over Zimbabwe, not just from Matabeleland.
MH: Cde Dabengwa, you were in Zanu-PF and you left to re-launch Zapu. What does your Zapu stand for?
DD: First, I did not join Zanu-PF. I never joined Zanu-PF. We went into Zanu-PF as Zapu, we integrated with Zanu-PF to become a new party all together
MH: So you integrated to become what?
DD: We would have preferred to be called Patriotic Front. Simple Patriotic Front. During the liberation struggle when we were in Mozambique, we actually had formed the Patriotic Front. We should have fought the elections in 1980 under one party, the Patriotic Front. Everything had been done, we in the military had agreed to merge our armies together even before independence, we were going to create one party which would have come in to fight that election in 1980 as the PF, but at the last minute, Zanu reneged on that and went on to register their participation in the 1980 election as Zanu-PF, which forced Zapu to then also say we are going to participate in that election as PF-Zapu. That was very unfortunate. We had worked very hard during the liberation struggle to bring the two parties together under the Patriotic Front. When the people in Zapu realised they continued getting a raw deal under the merged parties, in Zanu-PF they then decided enough was enough and they decided to pull out of this Unity Accord. So they pulled out, they did not form Zapu they went back to Zapu, they went in as Zapu and they came out as
Zapu minus, of course, some of the elements that decided to remain.
MH: But who are these people who left, who went back to Zapu? Many people only know you.
DD: I did not leave at that time. When this thing started, a delegation left here from Bulawayo to go and talk to Msika and they said, VP Msika, you are the one who is now acting President of Zapu.
By the way, Msika always said he is not Zanu. He is Zapu in Zanu-PF.
He said it publicly at meetings and I said the same publicly at meetings and every time we would talk even at Politburo we would say it. So we never lost our identity completely as Zapu and so when these people went to see Msika and said, Msika, we think things have come to a head, we don’t want to be associated with those presidential elections that have just come to an end where people have been killed in order to vote for a presidential candidate. We think we have seen enough of this and we don’t want to remain part of a party that uses these tactics in order to win an election.
MH: Which elections are we referring to here?
DD: The presidential.
MH: Of which year?
DD: 2008. After all those atrocities that took place in central Mashonaland, in the Mutoko area and so on, and they said we will not remain part of a party that uses these tactics we want to pull out. Msika said we went into this unity arrangement together, but if you people think you have had enough and you want to withdraw from the Unity Accord and go back to Zapu, no one can stop you from doing it. You go and consult all the Zapu people in all the provinces and if they agree with you, call a congress and make your decision to withdraw. No one can stop you from doing that, but you have to call a congress. It is at that stage that I was invited. I did not go to Msika and I was not part of the people that withdrew.
MH: We later saw you supporting Simba Makoni in the presidential elections. Whose project was Mavambo?
DD: Our idea was to make sure there is no winner and we succeeded in doing that. Our thinking at that time was if there is no winner, at the facilitation stage people would come together to an indaba and be able to discuss what is the way forward and the GPA should have included other people, other political parties, leaders of civil society, the war veterans should have been included, it should have been wider. We think it would have come out with a better structure for the implementation of that GPA agreement.
MH: So you didn’t want President Mugabe to win and you didn’t want Tsvangirai to win so that there would be a coalition government?
DD: The coalition government would have probably remained what it is now, but that GPA body that came out with that decision would have been a wider body. That consultative body would have been a wider body than what it was. There would have been wider consultations, people would have come out with a better structure
MH: Who funds Zapu?
DD: It’s the people, individuals.
MH: We also hear that at some point you got funding from the ANC (of South Africa), how far true is that?
DD: No, we have never had any funding from the ANC, not so far.
MH: When you went back to Zapu, are there colleagues you were with who were supposed to join you later in Zapu who are still in Zanu-PF?
DD: No, I wouldn’t say that there are any colleagues. When these people came out and they made an announcement that they were pulling out of Zanu-PF, it remained to individuals to decide whether they were coming along or not and this is exactly what happened. I went also to join them. I did not lead that.
MH: Who are these people?
DD: It started with the province of Bulawayo, the whole province of Bulawayo. They debated it at their meeting and they decided to send a delegation to Msika and that’s how it started and after that this province went around in all the provinces to identify the Zapu members there, and these are the Zapu members who came to the first congress to make a decision.
MH: There are reports that you were against the 1987 Unity Accord and you clashed with the late VP Nkomo over this issue. What was your alternative to the Unity Accord?
DD: I thought we should have been able to find an honourable way of sorting out problems that had arisen because of Gukuhurandi, the dissident element. We should have found a better way of sorting all this out. We went into the Unity Accord and we were doing it in order to save lives, but I never thought this was the best way. But I did not clash with Nkomo. He called me because I had decided I would stay away from it completely and had decided to go into business and forget about politics completely.
Nkomo called me and it is him who then persuaded me and convinced me that was the best route to take. I finally agreed. I didn’t clash with him.
MH: As a project for nation building, do you think the Unity Accord has delivered in that sense?
DD: It managed to stop the fighting and the things that were going on, but it did not solve the problems. It did not come out with a solution to the healing of the wounds and reconciliation. It has not been successful in that aspect
MH: Cde Dabengwa, what exactly are your differences with Zanu-PF?
DD. The differences are in the approach to things. The differences are mainly in the failure by Zanu-PF to attend to that thing that we fought for during the liberation struggle, to deliver to our people what we fought for, that’s the main difference. I don’t think their party is any longer focused on actually ensuring that we achieve those goals which we set about as we were fighting during the liberation struggle.
MH: Some people say to you this issue is more about wresting power from Zanu-PF than anything else?
DD: I would be more comfortable attending to issues pertaining to the development of this country and actually retiring and taking my rest enjoying my contribution towards the development of this country than being involved in politics as I am just now. I will be much happier if I could. But I found myself being asked by the people to lead them in Zapu and their requests were overbearing and I accepted.
MH: So in your analysis are we likely to have an outright winner in the coming elections?
DD: My analysis is that there are few chances of anyone coming up with an absolute majority to be able to form a government. If this analysis is correct, then you will have split votes spreading to the parties and that will create room for a coalition arrangement. The aim is obviously to win and have an absolute majority, but if it is not feasible, we will end up with, not a government of national unity, but a coalition arrangement.
MH: You have attacked another political party that has its roots in Matabeleland, Mthwakazi Liberation Front. What is the difference between Zapu and Mthwakazi?
DD: Well, I have not attacked them. Let me say I have differed with them on their approach. The Mthwakazi approach is that one of going back, according to them, to a division of the country into two, what probably they would want to call, I don’t know what they would call it, Matabeleland and Mashonaland and I am saying no that’s not what Zapu stands for. We are a unitary state but we must devolve power to the province.
MH: Don’t you think that your political career was better in Zanu-PF than now in Zapu because it seems now you have reduced yourself from that national figure that you were to a regional figure?
DD: No, I have not. Zapu has lots of support in other provinces throughout the country.
MH: But you don’t think your stature has been reduced now?
DD. It’s not about me, it’s about Zapu. I put the party first. I could be a leader today, I could be out tomorrow. I might not even stand as a presidential candidate for Zapu because somebody else might. The leader of the party does not necessarily become the presidential candidate when the elections come. The people choose who is going to represent them as their presidential candidate and that has not been decided. It will only be decided when the elections are announced
MH: Is there any possibility of Zapu going into a coalition with any of these other parties other than Zanu-PF?
DD: At the end of the day after the election results, Zapu will not be averse to go into a coalition arrangement with any party that shares the same values as it does.
MH: Cde Dabengwa, you were the Minister of Home Affairs for quite some time, 10 years — you sat in Cabinet with President Mugabe, you also sat in meetings with him during the Politburo. Tell us how your relations were during that time and how would you describe President Mugabe?
DD: We had very good relations indeed, there was a time in the early ’90s, as Home Affairs Minister each time we met he made it very clear that, ‘please if there is anything that worries you, don’t wait until we meet at Cabinet’ and we used to sit over a number of issues for many hours.
MH: What would you say are some of President Mugabe’s achievements?
DD: As a leader in the government, certainly there were achievements that were made, but I think, unfortunately, later on we were made to suffer a setback. He made lots of achievements in education and health.
MH: What do you think of the land reform programme and the indigenisation programme
DD: The land, that’s what we fought for but the manner in which it was implemented wasn’t good. I remember sitting in the Politburo one day and saying please before we move our people and allocate them land why don’t we first make sure that there is infrastructure that has been developed, there is water, and the people can survive in those areas, the schools are there, the clinics are near, let’s not just move people because we now have got the land and move them haphazardly into these areas. There were three land commissions where we spent lots of resources and came up with very good recommendations, but we ignored all this.
MH: What are your views on indigenisation?
DD: Indigenisation is a mess, no one is against indigenisation. It’s the manner in which it is being done. The people who go around grabbing people’s assets without working for them and without knowing exactly how to utilise and make those things productive.
MH: Cde Dabengwa, during the early stages of the drafting of the Public Order and Security Act (POSA), you were still minister, is that so? What role did you play in the drafting of POSA?
DD: Quite a big role. I was the one, I was the mover to replace the Law and Order (Maintenance) Act and we sat down with Minister Mnangagwa, we agreed let’s get the views of other people, we called in the Law Society, we called in civil society and we went through and debated POSA. Together we come out with a final document which I presented to Parliament and I sweated to get it through Parliament and when it went to the President for signing, to this date I don’t know what happened, but it never got approved.
MH: Have you ever thought of re-joining Zanu-PF?
DD: No! Never! I think Zapu stands to contribute more to this country as Zapu than as an appendage of another party. And I think Zapu has a history in this country as the first political party and I think it must be able to carry its identity right through for both the younger generation and for posterity. It has a history to protect.
MH: So if by-elections are to be called, will Zapu field candidates and what do you think will be your chances of winning?
DD: About the chances I don’t know. I was speaking to colleagues in the party and drawing their attention to the possibility of the by-elections being called anytime soon, particularly after the Supreme Court ruling, and I asked them are you ready? Do you think we are ready to field candidates and they gave me the confidence that they are ready and that we have got chances of winning.
MH: Where do you see Zimbabwe in the next five to 10 years with all the developments happening now?
DD: I’m very optimistic about the future. I think we have learnt a lot during the last few years and that we are going to emerge after this as a united party, as a united country, a nation state that has got respect for human rights and that appreciates the values for which our people suffered and sacrificed their lives for.
Labels: DUMISO DABENGWA, GUKURAHUNDI
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