Call for Gukurahundi monument

In a blog posted on the website for pressure group Kubatana last Friday, Rejoice Ngwenya said Zanu (PF) should erect the monument in Bulawayos Entumbane suburb as a way of showing remorse for the massacre of more than 20 000 civilians by members of the North Korean-trained Fifth Brigade in the early 1980s.

I would therefore like to propose that Zanu (PF) show their remorse by acknowledging that they were wrong, and instead of concentrating on further violating the liberties of white commercial farmers and black human rights defenders, invest money and time in financing a monument at Entumbane, Bulawayo, Zimbabwe so we can forever remember those whose lives they needlessly took, the commentator said.

At least 20 000 innocent civilians form the Ndebele ethnic minority were reportedly killed in the early 1980s during a bloody counter-insurgency drive by the army in Matabeleland and Midlands.

Mugabe who some say personally ordered deployment of the armys North Korean-trained 5th Brigade in Matabeleland and Midlands ostensibly to stop an armed insurrection against his rule has called the killings an act of madness.

But he has never personally accepted responsibility for the civilian murders or formally apologised.

The Zimbabwean strongman has also not yielded to calls by human rights groups for his government to compensate the victims of the brutal army operation popularly known as the Gukurahundi massacres.

Mugabe has conveniently avoided raising the issue fearing a backlash from disgruntled Ndebele members of his divided Zanu (PF) party all in hope of maintaining a fragile 1987 Unity Accord he signed with the then PF Zapu led by the late Joshua Nkomo.

The Ndebele group within Zanu (PF) has long been disappointed by what they see as the apparent sidelining of their region from national development issues. VUSIMUZI BHEBHE