VP Chiwenga comes face to face with Gukurahundi victims

Zimbabwean Vice-President Constantino Chiwenga at the weekend came face to face with victims of the Gukurahundi massacres who are also his own relatives from the Ndebele royal Khumalo clan during the burial of Chief Mabhikwa (Vusumuzi Khumalo) whose grandfather was killed in the genocide.

Chiwenga, whose mother is a Khumalo, paid for Mabhikwa’s burial and represented President Emmerson Mnangagwa and government at the funeral.

Without being direct, addressing the mourners Chiwenga said “bad things” that happened in the past were being addressed almost on a weekly basis by authorities.

Like everyone else, the Khumalo clan was also victim of Gukurahundi killings. Chief Mabhikwa senior (Vusumuzi’s grandfather) and a group of other elders were intercepted by the 5th Brigade on the Bulawayo-Victoria Falls highway in 1983, then frog-marched into a bush and killed.

The government is claiming to be working on modalities to bring closure to the Gukurahundi matter.

Gukurahundi massacres which saw the murdering of around 200 000 people were carried out by the North Korean trained 5th brigade.

Meanwhile, according to analysts it is going to be hard for the Mnangagwa led government to address the Gukurahundi matter because it caused it in the first place.

According to Reverend Ray Motsi the main problem why it is hard for the government to find closure to the Gukurahindi genocide matter is because it was caused by a government which is still in power.

He says the same government which caused the genocide can not judge and prosecute itself.

“The problem that we face of Gukurahundi was caused by a government which is still in power.

“The same government cannot be the prosecutor, the judge and accused all at the same time, making it difficult to deal with it,” he said in an interview with CiteZw.

Zwnews/ Newshawks