Fresh row over Gukurahundi killings

State media columnist Nathaniel Manheru widely understood to be President Robert Mugabe's spokesperson George Charamba - has ignited a fresh storm over Gukurahundi, claiming controversially that some politicians were using the massacres of the early 1980s in a desperate quest to seek political relevance.

In his latest offering in the Saturday edition of The Herald, Manheru described prominent political leaders such as Dumiso Dabengwa of Zapu as "little men" bent on furthering their personal interests over the killings that left an estimated 20 000 innocent civilians in Matabeleland and the Midlands provinces.

"I do so (writing about Gukurahundi) knowing how politicians, especially those embittered by the loss of what they view as posts natural to them, can very easily rake fresh these ominous fault lines.

They hope to gain from the ensuing conflict, indeed hope to use these natural fault lines to mobilise people for what in reality amounts to narrow personal quest for power," he said.

Mugabe himself has described the killings "as a moment of madness" in the history of the country.

Reacting to the columnist, political analyst Pedzisai Ruhanya told the Daily News on Sunday yesterday that there was nothing necessarily wrong in anyone seeking political capital out of Gukurahundi, with the real issue being whether there was substance in what was being raised.