"Come clean on Gukurahundi or take your chances at the International Criminal Court (ICC)."
That was the veiled warning to President Emmerson Mnangagwa on Friday from activists at talks in Bulawayo, three days after Sudan's new rulers agreed to send ousted president Omar al-Bashir to be tried at the ICC for alleged war crimes.
Mnangagwa was then president Robert Mugabe's national security minister when the army's Fifth Brigade killed an estimated 20,000 civilians in Matabeleland and Midlands in a series of massacres between 1983 and 1987.
Mugabe, who later called Gukurahundi "a moment of madness", blamed the extent of the killings on intelligence supplied by Mnangagwa. But no-one has been held criminally liable.
Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army (Zipra) veteran Baster Magwizi told the president at Friday's State House talks that a first step towards healing the running sore of Gukurahundi was a formal admission that the massacres took place
"Public acknowledgement sets benchmarks for apologies. As Zipra, we were victims of Gukurahundi. When we were victimised we ran home, where we were butchered with our families," Magwizi told the president.
"We don't want to take the matter to the international arena," he added, in what other delegates interpreted as a reference to Sudan's decision to hand over Bashir.
The ICC has charged Bashir with genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in the conflict in Darfur, which erupted in 2003 when ethnic minority rebels took up arms against Bashir's then Arab-dominated government.
Bashir, who is detained in Sudan after being convicted of corruption, denies culpability for the deaths of 300,000 people and the displacement of millions. He has evaded arrest for more than a decade, travelling overseas in open defiance of the ICC.
Mnangagwa's trip to meet the Matabeleland collective of civic society organisations was seen by some analysts as an attempt to defuse much of the international pressure around Gukurahundi.
But a member of the collective, who did not want to be named, said the fact that the talks were held at State House made it difficult for delegates to speak freely about the roles allegedly played in the massacres by the president and agriculture minister Perence Shiri, who earned the nickname "Black Jesus" as commander of the Fifth Brigade.
"There is no way you can dress down a person at their home. He [Mnangagwa] was part of the apparatus that maimed and killed people, then he invites you for lunch to talk about the matter at his house," said the activist.
"If, for example, one wanted to call them murderers, that wouldn't have gone down well."
During the meeting, a follow-up to preliminary talks 11 months ago, members of the collective said they doubted Mnangagwa's sincerity. He replied: "After 39 years of silence, I say let's talk about this thing, and you doubt my sincerity. I don't know what you would want to see."
Siphosami Malunga, executive director of the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa, said it was problematic that the alleged perpetrators of the massacres were now attempting to direct the healing process.
"If the government seriously wants to resolve Gukurahundi, it must do so genuinely and properly, with the humility of a guilty and remorseful perpetrator, not the arrogance of a powerful tormentor," Malunga told the Sunday Times.
If the government seriously wants to resolve Gukurahundi, it must do so genuinely and properly, with the humility of a guilty and remorseful perpetrator
— Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa's executive director Siphosami Malunga
"Perpetrators must realise that they will not be in power forever. It is in their interest to properly address this while they can.
"Gukurahundi can never be resolved by perpetrators using bogus healing processes without acknowledging their crimes, hearing the victims and addressing the victims' demands for justice."
Piers Pigou, the International Crisis Group's senior consultant for Southern Africa, said though Gukurahundi must be addressed, Mnangagwa's involvement was like "a fox guarding the henhouse". As such, "the process will not gain adequate credibility".
The Matabeleland collective's demands include:
- l Death certificates for those who were killed or disappeared during Gukurahundi;
- l Birth certificates for people whose parents died;
- l Reburial of victims in their family cemeteries;
- l Conferral of national monument status on mass graves;
- l Accelerated development for Matabeleland and Midlands, to help them make up lost ground; and
- l Psychological counselling and compensation for survivors.
Mnangagwa said he would be guided by advice from all stakeholders in the reconciliation process.
"In due course, I will receive recommendations from all concerned parties, including the affected families, the National Peace and Reconciliation Commission and the traditional leaders and other civic society groups," he said.
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