Gukurahundi Must Never be Forgotten

New documents have come to light that implicate Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe in mass killings of Ndebele people in western Zimbabwe in Januaryn1983.
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nThousands of recently declassified documents that appear to expose thenperpetrators are now becoming available in a raft of foreign archivalncollections. The documents are wide-ranging and include, among others,ndiplomatic correspondence, intelligence assessments and raw intelligencengarnered by spies recruited from within the Zimbabwean government.nThesenpapers — augmented by the testimony of Zimbabwean witnesses finding courage innold age — appear to substantiate what survivors and scholars have alwaysnsuspected but never been able to validate: Mugabe, then prime minister, was thenprime architect of killings that were well-planned and systematically executed.
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Psychopath-in-Chief, Mugabe’s quest for absolute Power

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nThe documents appear to show that the massacres were closelynassociated with an effort by Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party to eliminate oppositionngroups in the aftermath of Zimbabwe’s independence. Zapu, a party led bynnationalist rival Joshua Nkomo, represented the main obstacle to thatnobjective. Given that Zapu enjoyed overwhelming support among Ndebele, thenNdebele as a whole came to be seen as an impediment. In the words of Mugabe,nthe people of Matabeleland needed to be “re-educated”.
nThe little that Mugabe has said since the 1980s on thisntaboo subject has been a mixture of obfuscation and denial. The closest he hasncome to admitting any form of official responsibility was at the death of Nkomon(1999), when he remarked that the early 1980s was a “moment of madness” — annambivalent statement that perhaps reflected a fear of Ngozi (avenging spirits)nmore than anything else and one he has not repeated. More recently, he blamednthe killings on armed bandits who were allegedly co-ordinated by Zapu (thenoriginal smokescreen) along with occasional indiscipline among soldiers of thenarmy’s North Korean-trained Fifth Brigade.
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nIn the documents, his alleged co-conspirators tell andifferent story. In doing so, they controvert theories that Mugabe was poorlyninformed about the activities of errant subordinates. By March 1983, when newsnof the atrocities had leaked, prompting Western ambassadors and others to asknawkward questions, government ministers who were overseeing the operationnquickly pointed to Mugabe, documents allege. Sydney Sekeramayi, the minister innMugabe’s office with responsibility for defence, was one. In a conversationnwith Cephas Msipa, one of the few remaining Zapu ministers of what had been angovernment of national unity, Sekeramayi, said that “not only was Mugabe fullynaware of what was going on — what the Fifth Brigade was doing was under Mugabe’snexplicit orders”. Msipa later relayed this discussion to the Australian HighnCommission, which in turn reported it to headquarters in Canberra.
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n’Crisis of conscience’
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Msipa appears to be a credible witness in view of hisnamicable relationship with Mugabe. He had, for instance, shared a room withnMugabe for two years during their earlier career as teachers. Msipa had alsonwelcomed Mugabe into his home when the latter returned from Ghana in 1960 andnjoined the struggle against white rule. Between 1980 and 1982, when tensionsnwere rising between Zapu and Zanu, Msipa had served as a regular go-between andnhad spoken to Mugabe often. He continued to do so during the killings. WithinnZapu, Msipa, a Shona-speaker, had consistently advocated amalgamation withnZanu, a line that had attracted the ire of Ndebele-speaking colleagues. He was,ntherefore, considerably more sympathetic to Zanu and its leader than most innZapu. And yet, after speaking to Sekeramayi and others in Zanu, he wasnconvinced (as he told the Australians) that “the prime minister was rightnbehind what had been happening in Matabeleland”. He added that he had nevernbefore had such a “crisis of my conscience” about remaining in government.
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nSekeramayi was more circumspect in direct discussions withnWestern representatives, but nevertheless made clear that the massacres were nonaccident. The “army had had to act ‘hard’”, he told the British defencenattaché, “but … the situation was now under control”. Later, Sekeramayinadmitted to the British high commissioner that “there had been atrocities”.
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nThe documents also record that Msipa talked to other membersnof Zanu who revealed that the killings were not simply the whim of a smallncoterie, but the result of a formal and broad-based decision by the leadershipnof Zanu-PF. Eddison Zvobgo, a member of Zanu’s 20-member policy-making body,nspoke of a “decision of the central committee that there had to be a ‘massacre’nof Ndebeles”. That statement squared precisely with Fifth Brigade’s ethnocentricnmodus operandi. Mugabe’s heir apparent, the current first vice-president,nEmmerson Mnangagwa, was a member of the central committee. But so, too, werenothers who have subsequently developed a reputation for moderation, not leastnbecause of their latter-day rivalry with Mnangagwa. Former vice-president JoicenMujuru heads that list.
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nThe army commanders who directed the killings, many of whomnstill retain key positions in a security sector that underwrites the regime,nare also shown in the documents to have been eager accomplices. Zvobgoncommented that the first commander of Fifth Brigade, Perence Shiri, had said then“politicians should leave it to us” with regard to “settling things innMatabeleland”.nShiri is now the head of Zimbabwe’s air force.
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nTestimony from witnesses provides evidence that Shiri workednclosely with many former members of Mugabe’s guerilla army, Zanla,nnotwithstanding a myth that Fifth Brigade operated separately from the rest of thenarmy. Those who assisted Shiri allegedly included the now chief of Zimbabwe’sndefence forces, Constantine Chiwenga, who was this month awarded a doctorate innethics by the University of KwaZulu–Natal. During the killings, Shirinfrequently consulted with Chiwenga, who was then using the nom de guerrenDominic Chinenge and was head of First Brigade based in Bulawayo. Chiwenga’s unitnalso provided a range of practical assistance, including logistical support fornFifth Brigade and a base from which Shiri’s men operated when they made punitivenraids on Bulawayo’s townships.
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nThe first six weeks of Fifth Brigade’s attacks were massive inntheir intensity, but the documentary record shows that an order was given toncurtail this phase after news of the massacres began to leak to the outsidenworld. However, the killing did not end, but was instead scaled back andnconducted in a more covert manner.nEstimates of the death toll are frequently put at 20 000, anfigure first mooted by Nkomo when the campaign was still under way. Butnon-the-ground surveys have been piecemeal and vast areas of Matabeleland remainnunder-researched. Fear and the death of many witnesses provide furthernchallenges. A forensically-accurate number will never be possible, yet it seemsnpossible that the standard estimate is too conservative. Oral testimony fromnZimbabweans who were in key government positions during the 1980s disinters anhost of killings that were previously unknown. Cumulatively, this testimonynsuggests that the breadth of the violence and the extent of officialninvolvement could have been significantly underestimated.
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nPolite questions
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Observers have always wondered how much of this was known tonWestern governments — and what they did about it. It is clear from the documentsnthat they knew a great deal, even if some of the detail remained obscure. It isnalso clear that the polite questions asked by diplomats were — along withncourageous representations by churchmen and their allies in Zimbabwe — pivotal tonthe government’s decision to reduce the violence. Up to that point, there wasnno indication that the brutal force of the massacres would be curtailed.nNevertheless, Western governments did little once the massacres were broughtndown to a lower, but still savage, intensity. Perhaps as a sign that Westernncensure had its limits, the campaign in Matabeleland North continued during thenremainder of 1983; Fifth Brigade was redeployed further south in 1984.
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nIt is a fact that the Western response to violence towardnblack countrymen in the 1980s was a pale shadow of the reaction to his attacknon white farmers in 2000. Many Ndebele remain bitter about this inconsistency.nWhile historians debate the dimensions of Zanu’s violence, for Westernnpolicy-makers and the domestic constituencies that are meant to hold them tonaccount there’s a need to reflect again on the price of inconsistency in thendeveloping world. Aside from the human cost, Western advocacy of democracy andninternational justice will continue to be viewed with skepticism while suchnglaring contradictions remain.
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nAt the same time, an inordinate focus on the internationalndimensions of the Matabeleland massacres is to miss the point. Mugabe hasninstinctively sought to racialise and internationalise internal controversiesnof which he is the principal author or to invoke the spectre of neocolonialismnin the hope of support from fellow African leaders.
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nZimbabwe’s Second Vice-President Phelekezela Mphoko recentlynmade the claim that the Matabeleland massacres were a “conspiracy of the West”nand that Mugabe had nothing to do with them. Yet the new documentary materialnappears to underline once more that post-independence Zimbabwe’s greatestncrimes and deepest wounds lie squarely at the feet of Mugabe and Zanu-PF. Thendocuments appear to show that the killings were an internal affair, neithernprovoked nor sustained by outsiders, and that the atrocities were driven fromnthe top by Zanu-PF in pursuit of specific political objectives. Viewed across anperiod of several years and hundreds of files, the documents appear to providenevidence that — far from being a “moment of madness” in which supporters of rivalnparties went at each other — the massacres were but one component of a sustainednand strategic effort to remove all political opposition within five years ofnindependence, as Zanu leaders were determined to secure a “victory” againstnnonexistent opposition in elections scheduled for 1985, after which therenwould be a “mandate” from the people to impose a one-party state. —nDaily Maverick
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Dr Stuart Doran is an independent historian andnauthor of a forthcoming book based on the new documentary material —nKingdom, power, glory: Mugabe, Zanu and thenquest for supremacy, 1960–87.