ZwNews Chief Correspondent
The Kgalema Motlante Commission’s heavily criticised report has exposed that President Emmerson Mnangagwa indeed deployed the soldiers who killed unarmed civilians in the streets of Harare on 1 August 2018.
Mnangagwa who had initially lied that he didn’t know who deployed the military, read the report to the nation. However political commentators have taken a swipe on Mnangagwa saying he should have apologised after the exposure.
Prominent political scientist Doctor Pedzisai Ruhanya believes the country resembles a cursed nation in having leaders who are big headed and believe apologising is stooping low. “Neither Mnangagwa as President of Zimbabwe and Commander in Chief of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces, Oppah Muchunguri as the Minister of Defence, nor Valerio Sibanda as the Commander of the Defence Forces issued an apology against the murdered after the Motlante verdict.”
Another renowned political commentator Alex Magaisa shares the same sentiments, tweets;
“You set up a commission to investigate violence. The commission categorically says the soldiers you command and deployed shot and killed civilians and injured 35. But not a single word of apology or acknowledgement to the victims, survivors, and relatives.”
Zimbabwe has a history of human rights abuses at the hands of the state, some of them have been swept under the carpet, with Commissions whose findings and recommendations have never been taken up, acknowledged, or even been followed by an apology.
On such is the Chihambakwe Commission set up to look into the Gukurahundi massacres, its findings were never made public and instead of making an apology former President of Zimbabwe Robert Mugabe could only describe the murders as a moment of madness.
