Genocide experts say Gukurahundi justice needed for real peace

The killings of tens of thousands of Zimbabweans in the 1980s, at the hands of Robert Mugabe loyal soldiers, were last year finally classified as genocide by the internationally recognised group Genocide Watch. The group’s chairperson, Professor Gregory Stanton, said the Mugabe regime has been trying to sweep this atrocity under the rug for 30 years now but this classification now means the perpetrators can be prosecuted no matter how much time has passed.

This position was reaffirmed last week at a congress of the International Association of Genocide Scholars in Argentina, where more than 300 delegates from around the world gathered at the National University in Buenos Aires. Stanton said at that meeting that dealing with Gukurahundi was essential before real peace could come to Zimbabwe.

“That must include a chance for survivors to face their tormentors in a judicial environment, and a full investigation of events, regardless of who is named among the accused,” Stanton said.

Zimbabwe author and journalist, Geoff Hill, who in 2009 became the first African to serve on the panel of the Association’s advisory council, was one of the speakers at the congress. He told SW Radio Africa on Tuesday that so many questions remain unanswered regarding the Gukurahundi, and families of victims are yet to find any peace.

Hill also explained that lessons from Gukurahundi were especially relevant to the killings now taking place in Sudan where civilians are being hunted down and killed in the Nuba Mountains. He said the Gukurahundi killings are of serious interest, “because they demonstrate how silence by the international community leads to massacre.”

“The gun is not the deadliest weapon,” he said. “Sadly the real danger lies in silence because it allows the slaughter to continue, and this was our crime during Gukurahundi.”

Hill explained that this growing interest, as well as the classification of the massacres as genocide, will help take the fight for justice to “the next level.” He said that this could include a case one day being opened by the International Criminal Court (ICC).

“This is difficult because the ICC only hears cases from countries that are signatories…and Zimbabwe is not,” Hill said.

But he added that “international law is changing so fast,” and that justice for the Gukurahundi through the ICC was a possibility. He explained, that, for example, the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Sudanese leader Omar al Bashir, despite Sudan not being signatory to the ICC.