News / Local
No reburials for Gukurahundi victims, only a big plaque is enough--Mphoko
03 Mar 2017 at 04:13hrs | Views
Thousands of Gukurahundi victims in Matabeleland and the Midlands do not deserve to be exhumed for decent burials as it is unAfrican, President Phelekezela Mphoko told parliament.
There are growing calls for Gukurahundi victims killed soon after independence to be dugged up and re-buried.
However, Mphoko told legislators said only a "big plaque which will indicate that there are people who were buried there" was enough.
"We cannot go to the mass graves and start digging. It's not in our African culture. What we are only going to do is to put a big plaque which will indicate that there are people who were buried there.
"Those with bones that are visible by the grave site, we will take the bones and rebury them properly. It will be done within the law" he said.
Mphoko was responding to MDC-T Harare Central MP Murisi Zwizwai who was keen to know what progress has Mphoko made in terms of national healing as we approach 2018 since his appointment.
Early this year, the Americans released damaging claims of who among Zimbabwes ruling class allegedly directed the Gukurahundi massacres of the early 1980s.
According to declassified Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) reports, very senior government and military officials allegedly plotted at the time to annihilate Zapu and the Ndebeles, as Zanu PF sought to create a one-party State.
The reports further claimed that a rattled Zanu PF leadership also feared at the time that the then in power apartheid South Africa government, working with unrepentant Rhodesians, would join forces with the late revered Zapu leader Joshua Nkomo, to destabilise the new Zimbabwe government.
The released CIA documents also reveal how the USA viewed President Robert Mugabe's new government in the early 1980s as a key player in regional peace-building efforts, as well as, bizarrely, in Washington's fight against the Soviet Union during the Cold War era.
There are growing calls for Gukurahundi victims killed soon after independence to be dugged up and re-buried.
However, Mphoko told legislators said only a "big plaque which will indicate that there are people who were buried there" was enough.
"We cannot go to the mass graves and start digging. It's not in our African culture. What we are only going to do is to put a big plaque which will indicate that there are people who were buried there.
"Those with bones that are visible by the grave site, we will take the bones and rebury them properly. It will be done within the law" he said.
Mphoko was responding to MDC-T Harare Central MP Murisi Zwizwai who was keen to know what progress has Mphoko made in terms of national healing as we approach 2018 since his appointment.
Early this year, the Americans released damaging claims of who among Zimbabwes ruling class allegedly directed the Gukurahundi massacres of the early 1980s.
According to declassified Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) reports, very senior government and military officials allegedly plotted at the time to annihilate Zapu and the Ndebeles, as Zanu PF sought to create a one-party State.
The reports further claimed that a rattled Zanu PF leadership also feared at the time that the then in power apartheid South Africa government, working with unrepentant Rhodesians, would join forces with the late revered Zapu leader Joshua Nkomo, to destabilise the new Zimbabwe government.
The released CIA documents also reveal how the USA viewed President Robert Mugabe's new government in the early 1980s as a key player in regional peace-building efforts, as well as, bizarrely, in Washington's fight against the Soviet Union during the Cold War era.
Source - Byo24News
