“The Government will also start issuing birth certificates to children of some of the people who were killed during the disturbances and have been failing to get the documents and death certificates of those who died,” reported Zimeye.
“The government will next month start exhuming and burying bodies of victims of Gukurahundi.
“The recommendations were part of a high level third (closed door) meeting between President Mnangagwa and civil society groups under the banner of Matabeleland Collective at State House in Bulawayo yesterday.”
It is pleasing that those who have not been able to get birth and death certificates and all the other routine stuff done because of what happened during the madness Gukurahundi are finally going to do these things. It is shocking that it has taken nearly 40 years to have these matters sorted out.
Still, I have to question this Zanu PF government’s competence in the handling of any of the other substantive matters such as the reburial of Gukurahundi massacre victims, paying compensation to the victims, etc. To start with, these matters should be done after all the reports done so far on Gukurahundi have been released and the reburials, etc. are carried out as follow up processes.
There have been at least two official investigations, the Chihambakwe Commission, requested by Mugabe, and when Mnangagwa took over following the November 2017 coup he too set up a body to look into the matter. The two reports must be made public and only then must Zanu PF state publicly what the party propose to do next.
The path Zimbabwe has followed this last 40 years was defined, for better or for worse, by what happened during 1983 to the signing of the Zanu PF and PF Zapu Unity Accord - the Gukurahundi massacre years. Up to now, what happened has remained cloaked in shroud of secrecy and mystery. The shroud must now be lifted and the matter dealt with in an open and transparent manner.
Since Emmerson Mnangagwa and many of those in his Zanu PF government were the principle players in the Gukurahundi saga, it is very doubtful they can be trusted to let the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth come out. It would be better to do nothing regarding Gukurahundi at this point than to open up the old wound and make a complete mess of it!
The other point is; the timing of bringing up the substantive Gukurahundi issues is all wrong give the country is facing a very serious and immediate threat in then form of the corona virus pandemic! With out adding a new distraction, in the form of Gukurahundi, this Zanu PF government is already failing, once again, in its primary duty as the government of saving human lives.
This government's blundering incompetence and deliberate acts of deception in the handling of the corona virus is putting hundreds of thousands of Zimbabwean lives at risk. This is a humanitarian tragedy that is unfolding here and now and demanding our urgent attention!
Zororo Makamba, the country’s first corona virus victim, was allowed to mix freely with the public because a senior Zanu PF official overruled an Immigration Official who wanted Makamba placed in isolation.
South Africa’s corona virus infection rate will be similar to that of Zimbabwe, given the heavy human traffic between the two. SA has 12 843 covid-19 deaths, for example, and Zimbabwe, with 1/4 the population, should therefore have 3 210 deaths. Instead, Zimbabwe has, officially, 151 covid deaths; 20 times lower!
As of end of July 2020, SA had done 3 million test or tested 1 out of every 20 (1:20) of its 60 million population. In the same period Zimbabwe carried out only 145 000 tests out of a population of 16 million or 1:110!
In April the Zanu PF government promise to ramp up the country’s testing capacity and test health care workers regularly. It has not done so and hence the reason some health care workers are yet to have the first test! The biggest price the nation pays for failing to test aggressively is that many people with the infection and should be in isolation will remain to interact freely and thus spread the virus far and wide.
By the time there is a corona virus vaccine and/or cure, in a year or so time; Zimbabwe’s official covid-19 death rate would 2 000 or so. The real figure would probably have soared to a few hundred times higher than to official figure. The corona virus pandemic has the potential to kill 400 000 plus Zimbabweans!
So after 37 years, Zanu PF is finally doing something for the Gukurahundi dead. The tragedy is in attending to the long dead the regime is fostering on the nation a new national catastrophe even costing the nation 20 times more human lives than the Gukurahundi massacre!
The corona virus pandemic constitutes the greatest of our generation threat to human lives and livelihood for not only Zimbabweans across the board but the world over. Zimbabwe’s performance so far in stopping the virus entering our borders and, once in, containing it; is one of the worst in the whole world. Keeping this corrupt and incompetent Zanu PF regime focused on the immediate task of saving Zimbabwean lives and livelihoods from the corona virus and the disruption it is causing is going to be tough.
Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF cronies must be told in no uncertain terms ramp up the corona virus testing and all the other activities to help stop the spread of corona virus. The regime and the nation is ill equipped to deal with such matters as substantive Gukurahundi issues at present.
Indeed, Mnangagwa is bring up the substantive Gukurahundi issues to distract the nation from the urgent matters of the worsening economic meltdown, the growing social unrest and most pressing of all the soaring covid-19 infections and deaths! The need for all Zimbabweans to focus on the need to end the curse of rigged elections and bad governance has never been greater than it is today because until we end the curse all these problems will only get worse!
4 comments:
@ Ramaphosa
The effect has been devastating. Billions of rand that should have gone to improved public transport, to better infrastructure for the poor, to reliable and affordable electricity, to emerging black farmers and to the broader development of our country have been stolen to line the pockets of a criminal few.
Not only has money been stolen, but many of these institutions have been left deeply dysfunctional and some virtually destroyed. It has caused huge damage to the economy and to the capacity of the state.
We must have the political courage and the honesty to acknowledge that ANC leaders, public representatives and members have on numerous occasions been implicated in such forms of corruption.
As a Zimbabwean I find it sicken that President Ramaphosa is prepared to acknowledge that corruption is a serious problem in South Africa and he determined to root it out and yet he has stubbornly refuse to acknowledge the same scourge in Zimbabwe. He has maintain the root cause of Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown is sanctions and not corruption! How cynical and infuriating!
@ J Moyo
Posting on social media this Saturday, Moyo suggested that state security officials are likely to disregard any electoral and political reforms hence the need to for security sector reforms. He said:
"It's nuts to keep calling for electoral & political reforms in Zim. The 2013 Constitution ushered in far-reaching electoral & political reforms. The Zimbabwe Defence Forces (ZDF) took those reforms to the barracks in Nov 2017, locked them up & threw away the keys. Deal with #ZDF!”
This is the kind of Jonathan Moyo nonsense the people of Zimbabwe have learned to expect from Zimbabwe’s most notorious political sell-out of all time. We are to read from this nonsense that Zimbabwe was a healthy and functioning democracy with the most democratic constitution until the fateful 15 November 2017 military coup.
If the new 2013 constitution was a democratic one then how come it failed to deliver free, fair and credible elections in 2013?
The 2008 to 2013 failed to implement any meaningful democratic reforms including the reforms to end Zanu PF’s undemocratic and corrupting control of Army, Police, judiciary, ZEC and many, many other institutions, not just the Army. Moyo will never have anything evil to say about Augustine Chihuri and his Police Officers, for example, not because they were clean but because they were on the G40 faction side.
If we are serious about transforming Zimbabwe from the current dictatorship to a healthy democracy then we must overhaul the 2013 constitution and implement the raft of democratic reforms. We have to appoint an independent body to do it and Zanu PF, MDC and G40 members cannot be in the said body.
Nichols said regional bloc Sadc should play a crucial role in helping resolve the Zimbabwean crisis.
"This is an opportunity for the institution (Sadc) to stand up to the excesses that are taking place here in terms of human rights abuses. And this is an opportunity for Sadc to promote a more prosperous region," he said.
The diplomat saluted South African President Cyril Ramaphosa for sending special envoys to deal with the Zimbabwean situation, although there has been widespread disappointment after the envoys left without meeting other stakeholders, including the MDC Alliance.
Ambassador Nichols should not be encouraging SA President Cyril Ramaphosa and SADC to repeat the same mistake of forming another Zanu PF and MDC GNU. We had one is 2008 to 2013 and it failed to implement even one meaningful reform and hence the reason the country is still in this mess.
Zimbabwe needs a complete overhaul of its rotten political system. Zanu PF leaders will never reform themselves out of office and it is naive to expect that especially after the 2008 GNU failed.
The advice Ramaphosa and SADC need to hear is that they must accept they have failed; there is shame in admitting failure but it is even worse not to and repeat the same foolish mistake. Frankly the people of Zimbabwe cannot afford another to remain in this hell-hole another day longer. If SADC admit failure them it opens the door for the UN or some other body to step in a help.
Last week, Zulu told a virtual Governance Accountability Platform (GAP) discussion on The ANC and Zimbabwe hosted by the Brenthurst Foundation that Sadc should change its approach to the Zimbabwean crisis by being more proactive.
Zulu said South Africa cannot afford to fold its arms while Zimbabwe was burning, accusing Mnangagwa's administration of taking away the dignity of citizens.
"There is no way we can ignore what is happening in Zimbabwe.
"There is no way we cannot want to ask ourselves hard questions about the reality that is happening there.
"There is just no way that we can ignore the fact that we have Zimbabweans who are crossing borders on a daily basis, now the borders are closed, but people are finding a way of crossing.”
Lindiwe Zulu is right, there is a serious crisis in Zimbabwe and SADC and the world must ignore Zanu PF’s denials.
Ms Zulu was heavily involved in the 2008 to 2013 GNU and knows why it failed - there was no political will on the party of Zanu PF and MDC leaders to implement meaningful reforms. One hopes that she will remember this and dwell on everyone not to try the same solution again.
What Zimbabwe needs is to appoint a new body of individuals with the will and vision to implement the reforms and part the nation back on a firm democratic footing.
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