The Ministry of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs will this month hold a Gukurahundi Community Outreach Programme in Bulawayo on the 28th of January 2024.
The programme is targeting the media sector where editors from different publications and broadcasting houses will participate.
Permanent secretary in the Ministry of Information Publicity and Broadcasting Services Nick Mangwana confirmed the development.
“The Ministry of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs will this month hold a Gukurahundi Community Outreach Programme in Bulawayo on the 28th of January 2024, targeting the media sector where editors from different publications and broadcasting houses will participate,” said.
Gukurahundi was a genocide in Zimbabwe which arose in 1982 until the Unity Accord in 1987. It derives from a Shona-language term which loosely translates to ‘the early rain which washes away the chaff before the spring rains.’
In early 1983, the North Korean-trained Fifth Brigade, an infantry brigade of the Zimbabwe National Army started a crackdown on dissidents in the Matabeleland North, Matabeleland South, and Midlands provinces, home of the Ndebele and Kalanga.
According to Wikipedia, over the following two years, thousands of Ndebele and Kalanga were detained by government forces and either marched to re-education camps, tortured, raped and/or summarily executed.
Although there are different estimates, the consensus of the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) is that more than 20,000 people were killed.
The IAGS classified the massacres as a genocide.
Gukurahundi is still a hot issue in Zimbabwe with the government accused of failing to bring closure.
Many say the government should compensate the families of the victims.
Zwnews
