New documentary on Gukurahundi

Associated Press By Farai Mutsaka / Nehanda Radio

18 October 2018

A new documentary on massacres by Zimbabwe’s military has led to harsh exchanges as the 1980s killings challenge a new president who preaches unity but refuses to apologize for his alleged role in one of the country’s deepest wounds.

Zimbabweans watch the documentary, “Gukurahundi genocide: 36 years later” during its screening in Harare, Wednesday, October 17, 2018. The screening of the documentary on massacres by the military in the 1980s ended in harsh exchanges, reflecting how the killings pose a challenge for a new president who preaches unity but refuses to apologize for his alleged role in one of the country’s deepest wounds.(AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi)

The screening in the capital, Harare, would have been almost impossible under former leader Robert Mugabe, who led the country for 37 years and resigned following military intervention in November.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa, a longtime Mugabe loyalist and enforcer who succeeded him, has tolerated documentaries and plays critical of the government amid promises of a “flowering of democracy.”

But none has taken such direct aim at Mnangagwa as the new documentary on the army operation he supported as state security minister between 1983 and 1987. “Gukurahundi genocide: 36 years later” is named after that campaign.

During Operation Gukurahundi — “the early rains that blow away the chaff” in the local Shona language – a North Korean-trained brigade rampaged through the southwestern provinces of Matabeleland, leaving 10,000 to 20,000 civilians dead.

That’s according to a 1997 report by the Catholic Commission on Peace and Justice that drew on more than 1,000 interviews and is seen as the most authoritative account.

Zimbabweans watch the documentary, “Gukurahundi genocide: 36 years later” during its screening in Harare, Wednesday, October 17, 2018. The screening of the documentary on massacres by the military in the 1980s ended in harsh exchanges, reflecting how the killings pose a challenge for a new president who preaches unity but refuses to apologize for his alleged role in one of the country’s deepest wounds.(AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi)

Like his predecessor, Mnangagwa has refused to apologize but said he will accept recommendations of a national peace and reconciliation commission conducting public hearings on the atrocities.

“Authorities are not comfortable with this subject,” producer Zenzele Ndebele told the screening crowd on Wednesday night.

“Most people involved in Gukurahundi are now in power. This makes them uncomfortable,” said Ndebele, who said he was summoned by police before being allowed to screen the documentary in September in Bulawayo, a city where many of the atrocities occurred.

General Constantino Chiwenga and President Emmerson Mnangagwa

The documentary highlights Mnangagwa’s alleged role and features interviews with villagers, former top military officials and politicians narrating how they were tortured and jailed for belonging to an ethnic group accused of harboring anti-government rebels.

Some say Mugabe used the military campaign to stamp out support for the rebels. Others saw the massacres as an attempt by Mugabe to weaken any opposition to his stated aim of a one-party state.

Villagers recount being kept in camps and forced to dig graves for mass burials. Girls were raped and husbands forced to watch as soldiers raped their wives, witnesses say in the hour-long documentary.

“Since I was pregnant I was spared,” one elderly woman says.

Another woman says her husband divorced her because he could not stand sharing her with soldiers.

Although the 94-year-old Mugabe now lives quietly in the capital, the atrocities remain a fresh scar.

At the screening in Harare, the simmering tensions showed.

“It was biased, this is vendetta journalism,” 26-year-old Lonias Rozvimajoni said afterward. He described witnesses as “bogus” and the documentary as “fiction,” to a chorus of support from some. They said the timing of the documentary’s release was meant to tarnish Mnangagwa’s presidency.

Others shouted back, defending the work.

“You are hired guns,” barked Ibbo Mandaza, an academic who runs a non-governmental organization that hosted the screening, referring to the seemingly pro-government youths.

“Gukurahundi happened. I was in government at the time, I witnessed it,” said Mandaza, who had been a ruling party official.

He abruptly ended the session, although the heated exchanges continued over tea and biscuits in the courtyard.

“Maybe it will take them to become victims to understand,” Dumisani Mpofu, who worked on the documentary as a researcher, told The Associated Press.

North Koreans were brought in to train the Fifth Brigade – from the film footage

Members of the Fifth Brigade in Zimbabwe. The army unit is said to have massacred tens of thousands of people in 1983. Photograph: Zimbabwean National Archives/PA [photo added]

http://nehandaradio.com/2018/10/18/new-documentary-on-gukurahundi-massacres-takes-aim-at-mnangagwa/

Brief information: This is a documentary about a genocide in Zimbabwe. The genocide which was code named Gukurahundi (The Rain that Washes Away Trash) happened between January 1983 and December 1987. A special army brigade was deployed in Matebeleland (areas dominated by Ndebele speaking Zimbabweans ) and thousands of civilians were killed. The government of Zimbabwe has never apologised for this genocide.

The documentary, which contains historical footage and visuals, is 1 hour 14 minutes in length.

Click on the following link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUzBobYPa34

To read the definitive “Breaking the Silence” report by the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace in Zimbabwe (CCJPZ) and the Legal Resources Foundation:

Additional information: