Online Reporter
The Gukurahundi hearings started in Matabeleland North and South provinces last Thursday and we want to once again appeal to the media to assist citizens to find each other as opposed to inciting conflict and retribution. Chiefs from both Matabeleland North and South provinces are leading the public hearings aimed at bringing closure to the early 1980s disturbances that affected the two provinces and parts of the Midlands province.
The chiefs have produced the Gukurahundi community hearings manual that is guiding the conduct of the hearings. Government has provided the required resources such as laptops, recorders and printers, transport and other such resources.
Last year while addressing journalists that attended a sensitisation workshop on the Gukurahundi hearings, Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services permanent secretary Mr Nick Mangwana reminded the media that it has a critical role to play whenever a resolution or conflict of the past is being tackled. Now that the hearings have started, it is important to reflect on President Mnangagwa’s appeal to Zimbabweans to learn from Rwanda.
He said Zimbabwe should take a leaf from Rwanda’s post-genocide reconciliation model as it embarks on its healing process which has been kick-started by the public hearings. Rwanda witnessed the massacre of at least a million people in about 100 days in 1994. Rwandans every year mourn the genocide victims for 100 days from April 6 to July 4.
On April 6, a plane carrying President of Rwanda Juvenal Habyarimana and his counterpart Cyprien Ntaryamira of Burundi, both Hutus, was shot down killing all on board. The Hutu extremists immediately started well organised mass killings of Tutsis and moderate Hutus.
The plane was allegedly shot down by the Hutus to provide an excuse for the genocide. Women were beaten, raped, humiliated, abused and ultimately murdered often in sight of family members. Today the people of Rwanda who butchered each other using weapons such as machetes, clubs, knobkerries and guns are one united family working to develop their country.
Hutus and Tutsis are working together to revive Rwanda’s industries as well as attract foreign direct investment. Rwanda today is a shining beacon of a united nation that is enjoying the benefits of a shared national vision. It is a fact that Rwanda experienced one of the most horrific ethnic clashes in contemporary world history but managed to successfully bury its painful past.
President Mnangagwa has said what Zimbabwe needs is a strong political will to defeat the merchants of division. The challenge to the Zimbabwean media is to assist citizens to find each other like what happened in Rwanda. The focus should not be on who did what during the period which has been described as a “moment of madness” but to assist the nation to successfully bury its painful past.
Zimbabwe like Rwanda needs to emerge from these Gukurahundi hearings as one united nation with a shared vision to build the Zimbabwe we all want. This is only possible if the media plays its important role of assisting citizens to find each other as opposed to inciting conflict and retribution. Some opposition political parties are already attempting to put a spanner in the works by urging victims that are supposed to attend the hearing to boycott the hearings.
The parties’ allegations of intimidation and harassment of victims should be dismissed with the contempt they deserve. Citizens should be free to attend the hearings and give their testimonies as measures have been put in place to protect them.
