Mujuru faces Gukurahundi graves visit backlash

Civil society groups in Bulawayo have urged opposition Zimbabwe People First (ZimPF) leader, Joice Mujuru, to cancel her planned tour of Gukurahundi victims' graves, saying the visit could trigger a backlash from the victims' surviving families, who believe her concerns were not genuine.

Mujuru, at the weekend, told her supporters at a rally in Gwanda that she was planning to visit mass graves of Gukurahundi victims, particularly Balagwe in Maphisa, Matabeleland South province.

The atrocities, which claimed an estimated 20 000 people in Midlands and Matabeleland regions in the 1980s, were sanctioned by President Robert Mugabe's administration under the guise of crushing ex-Zapu dissidents.

Mujuru was one of Mugabe's ministers then. Zenzo Nyoni of the Education and Unemployed Youth Forum of Zimbabwe yesterday said Mujuru's new-found concerns over the Gukurahundi massacres smacked of hypocrisy.