Charles Mabhena
The minister of Higher and Tertiary Education, Science Development Professor Jonathan Moyo has challenged Vice President Phelekezela Mphoko who recently made sensational allegations that MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai was responsible for the Gukurahundi massacres, to prove it.
Moyo who lost his father to the genocide, gets nerves chilling and irritated whenever the subject is mockingly raised especially by those who gave orders for its execution and would want them brought to book.
It was said a man’s worst blow is death of his father, more so if that death was caused by someone; and for Moyo just like any other person who lost loved ones to it, the Gukurahundi issue brings sad memories indeed.
Moyo knows it quite well that President Robert Mugabe and his ZANU PF cabal were behind the killings, and it irritates him when he hears them mockingly pretend innocence or try to find a scapegoat for it.
Moyo believes the Gukurahundi that killed more than 20 000 civilians is a very serious matter, and that no one should trivialise it by making fun of it or raising unfounded allegations.
“I do subscribe to the doctrine that he who makes allegations has the burden to prove his or her allegations,” he says.
He also twitted that this type of allegations of issues were thousands of people lost their lives calls for the roping in of neutral and disinterested or non partisan scholars or authorities to examine the evidence and verify the claims.
“The disclosure should be empirically tested to verify it. It is serious prima facie given the person making the allegation, the person about whom the allegation has been made and the implications,” says Moyo.
Mugabe ordered the killing of more than 20 000 civilians in the Matebeleland region in the 80s using his Korean trained 5th Brigade as a way to consolidate power. Although he once admitted to it by calling it ‘it was a moment of madness,’ Mugabe and his party cronies feel unease when it comes to discussing the matter.
Sensing that people in the affected regions are still bitter over the issue, they have tried to deny responsibility, and at times gone as far as trying to shift the blame to others, just as what Mphoko did recently as he tried to engage the Matebeleland region which still bitter over the issue. Because of the genocide ZANU PF has found it hard to get much support from affected areas.
