Silence not broken, 28 years on….
Thank you for visiting our website today. It is now almost 30 years since Gukurahundi and 10 years since The Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace (CCJP) first published its ground-breaking report:Breaking the Silence, Building True Peace.
We must, however, ask whether the silence over Gukurahundi was, has, indeed been broken in Zimbabwe. Almost 30 years on, people of Matabeleland and Midlands are still living with the trauma of Gukurahundi alone and almost forgotten. As far we are aware, there are no records of individual or collective Gukurahundi commemorations by victims. Instead, the state has politicised and monopolised the history and memory of Gukurahundi, thus appropriating the victims’ narrative to suit its own ends.
Today and as has always been the case in the years since Gukurahundi, the Zimbabwean government has imposed limits on how and when individual survivors or whole communities can express their sorrows. This, however, is not entirely surprising given that the government has never accounted for its role in the massacres. To the government, Gukurahundi is the unmentionable past.
It is also fair to say that it is not only the state that has imposed limits on Gukurahundi discourse. Zimbabwean civic society has been deeply polarised over Gukurahundi. Deep divisions exist over interpretations of the past and interventions for the future resulting in a form of self-censorship within civic society. This self-imposed silence is mainly out of fear or out of concern for what might happen if the truth about Gukurahundi were to be known. Victims fear being accused of “opening old wounds” and not letting bygones be bygones while perpetrators fear retribution, thus perpetuating the silence. The Gukurahundi massacres were gruesome, sadistic and brutal beyond imagination. We accept that it is therefore very difficult for victims to openly speak about their trauma in this climate of fear.
For Zanu-Pf, the massacres must be kept out of public discourse because not only are some of its elite implicated but also, Gukurahundi does not fit in with the party’s triumphalist Chimurenga ideology of victory over colonialism - after all, Gukurahundi happened in post-independence Zimbabwe. The opposition MDC party, whenever it mentions Gukurahundi in discussions about its “New Zimbabwe” project, makes vague and contradictory statements about how it will handle the issue.
Publication of the CCJP report in 1997 was indeed a break-through, even though the report mentioned the deaths, rapes, mutilations, torture and disappearances collectively rather than by individual name. To really break the silence, the massacres must be explained in full so that victims and indeed perpetrators can find closure and fully come to terms with their trauma. We must put names and faces to the victims and allow for commemorative activities to publicly take place.
Since publication of the report, the sense of grievance has increased in the affected communities and we must therefore search for the whole truth if issues of justice, peace, forgiveness and healing are to be properly addressed. Whether or not you were affected (and few of us were not) by Gukurahundi, we invite you to join us in this quest for truth and justice. We welcome help of any kind and we will build partnerships with like-minded global, regional and State institutions whenever possible.
Siyabonga/Thank You
DIRECTORS
Mthwakazi Action Group on Genocide in Matebeleland & Midlands
(MAGGEMM)
