PRESIDENT Mnangagwa landed in Bulawayo yesterday to launch today the traditional leaders-led Gukurahundi public consultations during a meeting that will see the engagements roadmap being outlined.
He will launch the programme at State House in the city and
chiefs will also be in attendance.
The traditional leaders have already produced a working
manual which will guide them as they conduct public hearings on Gukurahundi.
The Second Republic has committed to working towards
national healing.
After today’s launch, traditional leaders are expected to
lead public hearings and also come up with resolutions on what needs to be done
to heal society. During a press briefing yesterday, Information, Publicity and
Broadcasting Services Permanent Secretary Mr Nick Mangwana said President
Mnangagwa said Zimbabweans will learn more of the Gukurahundi public hearings
road map after today’s meeting.
“His Excellency, the President arrived today for the launch
of the community engagement and consultation meeting regarding the Gukurahundi
conflict. He is in town and the function will be at State House tomorrow,” said
Mr Mangwana during the press conference that was also attended by Justice,
Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Permanent Secretary Mrs Virginia Mabiza.
He said today’s engagement is a confirmation that the
Second Republic is walking the talk in terms of addressing concerns of
Zimbabweans.
Gukurahundi remains an unfortunate chapter in the country’s
history and members of the public in Matabeleland provinces have blamed it for
contributing to under development in the region.
Some families of victims of Gukurahundi were reportedly
failing to obtain national documents.
President Mnangagwa had to intervene, instructing the Civil
Registry Department to relax stringent conditions that were contributing to
members of the public failing to obtain the national identity documents.
“Tomorrow His Excellency, the President will be launching
the beginning of the consultation and engagement process in the communities regarding
the past conflict cases of Gukurahundi and the issues that came from that. He
will be engaging the chiefs and setting them off to go and meet their
communities,” said Mr Mangwana.
He said traditional leaders were selected to lead the
process as they are at the heart of where Gukurahundi occurred and understand
community challenges better.
“Chiefs are the leaders of the people. Therefore, the
leaders of the people will be meeting their communities,” he said.
Mr Mangwana said traditional leaders are the custodians of
cultural practices and they are best suited to understand what needs to be done
to conduct cultural rituals.
He said chiefs have been independently operating in
preparing for the coming public hearings.
Mr Mangwana said Government is not even aware of the
contents of the working manual that traditional leaders produced.
He said officials will also learn of its contents tomorrow
as they make their presentation to President Mnangagwa before they start
engaging communities. “We have no idea on what is in the manual, it shows that
chiefs take full ownership of that document. They are the leaders; they own it
so there is no interference from Government regarding their manual. They
probably came up with that after consulting the communities. So, we can say it
is owned by the chiefs and also owned by the communities,” said Mr Mangwana.
President Mnangagwa in his Unity Day message last year in
December said he had made it his personal mission to resolve the Gukurahundi issue
and created a united nation. Chronicle
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