Opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) Vice President and Matabeleland political heavyweight Professor Welshman Ncube has described the decision by the state not to publicize the Chihambakwe and Dumbutshena reports on Gukurahundi findings as ‘hide and seek’.
This comes on the back of revelations by the National Peace and Reconciliation Commission (NPRC) chairperson Retired judge Justice Selo Nare that the aforesaid reports believed to be containing critical information are missing, a position the commission later denied.
Exclusively speaking to 263Chat on the sidelines of the party press briefing on Wednesday, Professor Ncube said reports that speak to the effect that the Gukurahundi Commission findings are missing are just but an ‘unnecessary smoke and mirrors’ gesture.
“It’s unnecessary to be playing this game of smoke and mirrors that’s what it is. It’s a game of smoke and mirrors, hide and seek. We all know the report is there somewhere but because it contain such damning information those who have it are hiding it.
“But we hope that in the fullness of time all of the information, all of the data will be availed not just to the commission but to the Zimbabweans so that we come to terms with terrible things we did to each other in the past,” he said.
Speaking to the State Broadcaster; ZBC, ahead of Zimbabwe’s 39th Independence Day commemorations, President Emmerson Mnangagwa said there is nothing wrong with Gukurahundi subject being interrogated in public spheres for the purposes of finding a closure to one of the most historical stages that saw more than 20 000 people gunned down in Matabeleland and some parts of Midlands Province.
“Let us debate it. It was so open a debate and at the end of the day, we feared nothing. There was nothing to fear about that debate. Actually, it’s critical that we have that debate and as a result of that conversation we have created a matrix of implementation of ideas to deal with issues that were raised. Some of the issues could have been resolved a long time back. In my view, there is not a single issue that cannot be discussed and a way forward crafted,” Mnangagwa.
Mnangagwa however, like his predecessor Robert Mugabe, is alleged to be central to the atrocities that characterized the genocide in Matabeleland in the early 1980s whose political narrative at one point likened dissidents to ‘cockroaches and bugs’ who were to be dealt with.
Mugabe rather called it a moment of madness after he came out on television on the eve of the Gukurahundi saying, “the dissidents, we have treated them with kid gloves for all along, but we are all now going out to crush them and we will crush them.”
The NPRC is currently on a 21 days national outreach program where it is engaging victims of the Gukurahundi the majority whose relatives were killed in cold blood by the North Korean trained fifth brigade.
The majority of them have had difficulties in acquiring national registration identity cards and birth certificates with trauma ringing in their hearts regularly particularly on the fact that most victims did not receive proper burial.
