DEFENCE deputy minister Victor Matemadanda has said former
President Robert Mugabe must be tried for the 1980s Gukurahundi massacres.
In a video uploaded on SMTV on Saturday, Matemadanda also
said Mugabe was solely responsible for the economic hardships the country is
facing following 37 years of misrule, during which he travelled across the
globe inviting sanctions by insulting world leaders.
Mugabe, between 1983 and 1987, presided over the killing of
between 8 000 and 20 000 defenceless Zimbabweans of mostly Ndebele ethnic tribe
by the North Korea and British military-trained Fifth Brigade of the Zimbabwe
National Army.
The Fifth Brigade had been deployed to extinguish what
Mugabe said was insurgency from the Joshua Nkomo-led Zimbabwe African People
Union military wing called the Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army.
“He must be tried for the people he killed through
Gukurahundi. Chiefs must take him and try him and make him pay for his sins. He
has plenty of cattle at his Gushungo Dairy and that is how he can exorcise
ngozi [avenging spirit]. He is old, but still coherent and must be
tried,”
Matemadanda said.
He spoke to SMTV in an apparent reaction to Mugabe’s recent
attack on President Emmerson Mnangagwa over the extra-judicial killings carried
out by members of the security forces in January this year.
“When we talk about the old man — the Mugabe mythology. You
may want to forgive the old man, but I don’t think he deserves forgiveness,
because surely, surely Mugabe tells Mnangagwa not to kill people … it’s unheard
of. Mugabe, telling people not to kill each other. Who is the specialist?”
Matemadanda asked.
“Some of us survived because of our speed to run away. Even
Mnangagwa he is talking to … he forgets that he escaped death from him. Maybe
he (Mugabe) is the known and approved hangman or killer. I think he (Mugabe)
wanted to say you are taking away my job (of killing people) because that’s his
job.
“I went to Matabeleland and Midlands. I come from the
Midlands and I said this man is old, but still coherent. Chiefs, take this man,
he has cattle at Gushungo Dairy. Because avenging spirits are settled by paying
cattle and he must be tried for Gukurahundi massacres so that we can close this
case.”
He said because Mugabe has not been tried in a court of
law, so he is presumed innocent.
“So, as of now, we cannot call him a mass murderer. We can
only say people got killed during his rule until the court finds him guilty,”
Matemadanda said, hinting at the direction the Mnangagwa administration could
be taking to solve the Gukurahundi issue.
The massacres, which have been a source of pain and rift
between the Ndebeles and the predominantly Shona tribe, with some of the former
calling for separate a Ndebele State, have been used by opposition leaders to
garner votes in mostly Bulawayo and other pockets of Matabeleland, where Zanu
PF has not won seats in parliamentary elections since independence.
Mnangagwa and his deputy, Constantino Chiwenga, after
seizing power through a coup in November 2017, were asked by people of
Matabeleland to explain their roles in the Gukurahundi massacres.
The government, in response, set up a department to probe
and seek to heal the wounds, but this has been met by resistance from political
parties and pressure groups in Matabeleland.
They even frowned upon the setting up of the post-election
violence commission led by former South Africa President Kgalema Motlanthe for
failing to probe the Gukurahundi massacres.
Matemadanda fell out with Mugabe for openly backing
Mnangagwa’s ascendance.
“We can just say people disappeared … maybe they just sunk
we don’t know … and then he accuses Mnangagwa saying don’t try to be God as if
he (Mugabe) is a god bigger than God himself,” Matemadanda said.
He asked why Mnangagwa was being asked to explain the
disappearance of people during the Mugabe era.
“In our culture, if you are a witch and you come crying
more than the bereaved, we give you the deceased to eat,” Matemadanda says in
the video clip.
He said it was entirely up to Mnangagwa to “put him
[Mugabe] in order”.
“Mugabe not only killed people, but destroyed the economy.
These problems that we have are a result of Mugabe’s rule. Even the sanctions;
he enjoyed going all over insulting people over there and yonder. He became
famous for insulting,” Matemadanda said.
Mugabe, at one time hijacked a Johannesburg earth summit to
denounce then British Premier Tony Blair, telling him, “So Blair, keep your
England and let me keep my Zimbabwe”, while defending the seizures of
white-owned farms.
Mugabe, who also used international forums to attack former
United States President George Bush, turned his back on the Commonwealth,
worsening the country’s economic woes. Newsday
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