FIERCE Government critic and opposition politician Mr David
Coltart has described the move by the Government to facilitate the issuance of
birth certificates and death certificates as well as the exhumation and
reburial of those who died during political disturbances in the 1980s known as
Gukurahundi as a huge step forward.
In an interview on Thursday last week, Mr Coltart, who was
part of a team that worked on a report of the post-independence disturbances
titled: Breaking The Silence-A Report on the Disturbances in Matabeleland and
the Midlands, 1980-1988 said it was important that the Government has opened up
the discussion on the Gukurahundi issue.
“It’s important that the discussion is taking place after
being silenced for several years. We need to have proper burials for the
victims of the conflict,” he said.
“But the key issue is whether the Government’s move is
going to bring about reconciliation. I remember when we worked on the report,
Breaking The Silence between 1990 to 1997 where we interviewed 2 000 victims,
the people were clear on what they wanted. They wanted three issues to be
addressed, acknowledgement from those who were involved in the atrocities,
secondly an apology and thirdly communal reparations. They raised communal
reparations because it was their feeling that their areas were disadvantaged
during that period compared to other areas in the country.”
Mr Coltart said through communal reparations the people
called for the upgrading of infrastructure such as roads, schools, bridges,
clinics and hospitals.
“The other issue that should be done to bring about
reconciliation is that the exhumations should be carried out by qualified
people. There should be DNA tests so that those who died are linked to their
surviving relatives, after which they should be proper burials and that might
go a long way in bringing closure.”
Mr Dumisani Nyongolo Nkomo, director of the Habakkuk Trust
and also a member of the Matabeleland Collective said the Government’s moves
was the first baby steps to achieving greater goals such as apologising for
past hurts.
“I think the most important thing is that for the first
time there has been an acknowledgement, there hasn’t been an apology yet but an
acknowledgement that such a thing happened. It has been put in writing now. The
other important thing is the
decriminalisation of the Gukurahundi activities and speech because in
the past people like Owen Maseko, Mbuso Fuzwayo from Ibhetshu LikaZulu were
arrested for doing activities around Gukurahundi so it’s an important step as
well, even though there’s no overt law that bans talking about it,” he said.
Chairman of the National Peace and Reconciliation Justice Sello Nare said
dialogue should start as low as family level, community level and finally get
to national level.
“It is important that we ensure that everyone’s voice is
heard as we dialogue and that is why I am excited about this process today.
This will help to shape the national and provincial agenda in terms of the key
issues that we want to constitute a national process. We will be working with
communities to find out how they want the process of healing and closure to be
sequenced and what their major priority areas where.”
Zimbabwe Christian Churches Alliance leader, Reverend Useni
Sibanda, commended the Government’s decision saying affected people will get
closure in the issue.
Last week the Office of the President and Cabinet (OPC)
announced that it was in the process of implementing a number of modalities as
part of its response to calls for compensatory development, national healing
and devolution by the Matabeleland Collective. Chief among what the OPC said it
would do was the exhumations and reburials of victims of Gukurahundi, issuance
of identity documents and offer psycho support to survivors. President
Mnangagwa last month met the Matabeleland Collective, a grouping of
non-governmental organisations, faith-based organisations, community-based
organisations, trusts, savings clubs and social movements from Bulawayo,
Matabeleland North and Matabeleland South as part of the new dispensation’s
thrust of collective engagement towards development. Sunday News
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