CRITICS say failure by the ruling Zanu PF party to adopt a resolution on addressing Gukurahundi exposed the lack of political will to find closure to the 1980’s mass killings.
Zanu PF held its annual conference in Bulawayo where some of the surviving victims of the mass killings are now aging without having been compensated.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa mentioned Gukurahundi in his speech at the conference, and critics said expectations were high that a resolution would be adopted on addressing the emotive matter.
The consensus from critics is clear: without genuine acknowledgment and accountability, healing remains elusive.
They said silence from the ruling party suggests a deeper unwillingness to engage with the painful realities faced by many Zimbabweans, particularly in Matabeleland.
The recent lack of progress on a promised outreach programme to be led by chiefs further amplifies concerns about the sincerity of efforts to reconcile the past.
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Ibhetshu LikaZulu secretary-general, Mbuso Fuzwayo, said he was not amused.
“Gukurahundi is a priority to them because, as an organisation, the official position that we have heard from them is that Gukurahundi was resolved by the late president, Robert Mugabe and the late vice president, Joshua Nkomo when they signed the Unity Accord in 1987,” Fuzwayo said.
“Even when you listened to his state of the nation address, there was no mention of Gukurahundi.
“It’s a sign that it’s not a priority.
“People in Mashonaland need to know what happened, and how it happened, or who did what to find closure.”
Zapu spokesperson, Richard Gandari, said the party was left disappointed after reading the reading resolutions.
“The resolutions focus largely on the ruling party’s power retention agenda and maintaining the status quo with regards to its clueless leadership,” Gandari said.
“That is why we had to endure the gory spectacle of a whole conference staged only to solidify Zanu PF’s factional ED2030 agenda.
“As Zapu we are also dismayed by the conference’s deafening silence on the chiefs-led Gukurahundi outreach program launched by President Mnangagwa in July at State House in Bulawayo.”
Bulawayo-based human rights activist and political commentator, Effie Ncube, said Gukurahundi should never be an extension of any party programmes.
“In my view, a party resolution on addressing the Gukurahundi atrocities would have turned the emotive subject into a party programme, making it difficult to achieve the much-needed cross-cutting consensus and preventing a national and across-the-board buy-in by stakeholders,” Ncube said.
“It should be emphasised again and again that mechanisms and processes for addressing Gukurahundi should be credible, victim-centred, impartial, inclusive, above party politics, and insulated from inter and intra party squabbles.”
“Success is relatively easier to achieve when political parties do not control, direct or dominate decision making or use the subject to their partisan ends.”
Mnangagwa’s fearsome reputation became public in the 1980s during Gukurahundi, a brutal campaign of repression and violence that ravaged the Matabeleland region.