Many survivors claim that the ghosts of Gukurahundi are not yet at peace.
For decades, justice has eluded the thousands of people killed by a feared military unit in Zimbabwe’s southwestern and central provinces in the 1980s.
The murders – which some have called “genocide“– were allegedly committed on the orders of former President Robert Mugabe, who ruled the southern African country for more than 29 years, as he targeted political dissidents.
Some 40 years after the killings, Zimbabwean authorities last week launched a “community engagement” program that officials say will promote “healing, peace and unity” in survivors’ communities.
However, many affected people are sceptical and believe that justice cannot be delivered by a government made up of officials suspected of involvement in the killings and which they say has yet to fully acknowledge the weight of the atrocities committed.
“It’s a genocide, even the government knows it,” activist Mbuso Fuzwayo told Al Jazeera. “But there is no acknowledgement. This is an important aspect that we expect from the government,” he said.
What is the Gukurahundi massacre?
Between 1982 and 1987, the Fifth Brigade, a North Korean-trained Zimbabwean army unit, repressed mainly Ndebele-speaking communities in the southwestern provinces of Matabeleland North and South, as well as the Midlands province in the central area.
Dubbed Gukurahundi, meaning “rain that washes away straw” in Shona, the operation was intended to target dissident fighters from the Zimbabwe Africa People’s Union (ZAPU) political party.
ZAPU, led by politician Joshua Nkomo, drew most of its support from the Ndebele-speaking minority areas and was a rival faction of President Mugabe’s Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU).
Although they had both fought against white rule, and although Nkomo had served as interior minister under Mugabe, the two men distrusted each other. In 1982, Mugabe dismissed Nkomo, accusing him of plotting a coup to overthrow the government of the newly independent country, and vowed to expel his supporters from positions of influence.
The Fifth Brigade, however, not only attacked ZAPU members, it also targeted civilians en masse and at random, including women and children. People were executed in public squares after digging their own graves or driven into buildings and burned alive.
“They killed, raped, tortured, disappeared people,” said Fuzwayo, secretary general of the local human rights group Ibhetshu LikaZulu. His grandfather was one of the missing. “People were shot in broad daylight, people starved to death because they were not allowed to move around to buy anything.”
Hundreds of young men of fighting age, considered potential rebels, were also targeted and taken to concentration camps.
The killings ended after the two rival factions agreed to integrate and form a national unity government in 1987. The exact number of people killed remains uncertain, but local sources put the figure at at least 20,000.
Bodies were left in burned buildings or dumped in mine shafts. Survivors recovered thousands of bodies, which now lie in many mass graves in the area.
Has the government attempted to solve murders in the past?
Although the government has never officially acknowledged the killings and denied that genocide took place, Mugabe’s government has repeatedly attempted to open an investigation.
The first Chihambakwe commission of inquiry was established in 1983, when the killings were still continuing and the government was under enormous pressure from the international press and human rights groups.
The commission, named after its chairman Simplicius Chihambakwe, investigated the killings of 1,500 people, including Ndebele dissidents and civilians. The government, however, has never made its findings public, saying they risked further violence.
In 2013, Mugabe’s government established the National Peace and Reconciliation Commission. However, while the commission’s mandate includes promoting unity by “encouraging people to talk about the past”, it is not specifically empowered to address the issue of the Ndebele massacres.
Officials in the former president’s office said Mugabe ordered the killings, but this has never been proven.
Mugabe’s government denied the accusations at the time. In 2000, the former president called the killings a “moment of madness” but did not acknowledge direct responsibility. The Zimbabwean government has also not formally apologised for the killings.
Residents say they could not talk about the massacre for a long time because they were afraid of reprisals from soldiers.
What is the new reconciliation agenda under Mnangagwa?
Since former Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa took over as president in 2017, he has promised justice for survivors.
The president promised to exhume the bodies of the remaining victims and hold burials. He also pledged to work with local leaders and civil society to issue death certificates to victims, as well as birth certificates to descendants, many of whom lost their identity documents when their parents were killed or when they were forced to flee amid the killings.
For the first time, Mnangagwa encouraged people to discuss this painful history openly.
In 2019, the president began meeting with Matabeleland chiefs and civil society organisations for consultations on how to achieve some form of restoration.
On July 16, Mnangagwa launched the Gukurahundi community engagement programme at a ribbon-cutting ceremony in Bulawayo, the largest city in the Matabeleland region.
“This chapter is a stark reminder of the fragility of unity and the devastating consequences of disunity,” Mnangagwa said in a speech at the launch.
The programme is expected to see local chiefs lead the reconciliation process, supported by women’s representatives and religious leaders. It will consist mainly of community hearings where victims will give their side of the story and provide evidence. Officials say survivors will receive psychosocial support and benefits such as pensions, health services and free education. It is unclear when the community hearings will begin.
Some members of the survivors’ communities say they have little hope for the operation, mainly because Mnangagwa himself was implicated in the killings as Minister of State for National Security between 1980 and 1988. This period covers the period during which the Gukurahundi killings took place. Mnangagwa has repeatedly denied any involvement in the killings.
“There is no difference between Mugabe’s government and Mnangagwa’s government except that this government allows people to talk about what happened,” activist Fuzwayo said, arguing that a proper investigation should be carried out by external teams not involved in the massacre.
“The people who participated in the extermination of people still hold the levers of power, and this government has refused to publicly accept: ‘Yes, we killed people.’ Mnangagwa can come out and say: ‘We did this.’ Until that is done, there will always be a culture of impunity in this country,” he added.
The community engagement plan does not specify how the perpetrators of the massacres will participate, or whether reports of the massacres, which have been classified, will now be made public – a condition demanded by many Ndebele activists. It is also unclear whether survivors and victims’ families will receive financial compensation.
Is Gukurahundi still affecting areas of Matabeleland?
Members of the Ndebele minority, who make up about 14 percent of the population, accuse successive governments of “marginalization and exclusion” based on tribalism, despite the end of the killings. Most of them distrust the Shona-majority government.
According to many, the Matabeleland region is poor, lacks infrastructure and employment opportunities and has failed to develop at the same pace as other provinces.
Many also point out that a core of professionals were killed in the massacres, accentuating the region’s development lag.
“They killed most of the teachers, architects, the core of society. Matabeleland lost its identity – we were beaten into submission,” Fuzwayo said.
Zimbabwe, under both Mugabe and Mnangagwa, has had a long history of human rights abuses and discrimination. As president, Mnangagwa was accused of filling his cabinet with members of the Karanga community, a subgroup of the Shona to which he belongs.
