Matebeleland Gukurahundi Genocide Memorial Commemorative Day 2019, UK

Each year the 1893 Mthwakazi (Matebeleland) Human Rights Restoration Movement (1893 MHRRM), in partnership with stakeholders, will be organising and encouraging the organising of Matebeleland Gukurahundi Genocide Memorial Day (MGGMD) Commemorative Events in Matebeleland, United Kingdom, South Africa and in other parts of the world to remember 50 000 to 100 000 Matebele who were murdered by the state of Zimbabwe between 1980 and 1987 using a North Korean trained exclusively Shona ethnic brigade called the 5th Brigade of Zimbabwe or Gukurahundi.

For those not in the know, Gukurahundi is a word from an ethnic Shona language in Zimbabwe that means the early rains that washes away the chaff before the spring rains.

In UK, the Matebeleland Gukurahundi Genocide Memorial Commemorative Day will be on the 29th June 2019 at:

St Martin's Church Centre, 33 Parkstone Road, Desford, LE9 9HY, Leicestershire

Time 12:00 noon to 18:00 pm

The Memorial Commemorative Day will feature personal testimonies from survivors of the Genocide, films, poetry and music. It will also feature shared testimonies from other surviving genocide victims of other Nations of the world. It will make a strong call for the Zimbabwean government to stop exhumations and reburial of the dead without international forensic work being done by forensic experts leading to destruction of crime evidence.

Our Declaration Statement of Commitment
- We painfully recognize that the Matebeleland Gukurahundi Genocide was the first Genocide of its kind in post-colonial Southern Africa and that it must be universally condemned by the international community.

- We value all those who made sacrifices to expose the Genocide to the world and all those who sacrificed their lives to protect Matebeleland people from the evils of Gukurahundism or those who have given sanctuary to the people of Matebeleland around the world

- We commit to working with all stakeholders in Matebeleland to agree on a Memorial Day that will be chosen by all our people for future yearly Commemorative Events

- We commit to the Collective Memorization of the Genocide by the people of Matebeleland in public spaces in Matebeleland and in other parts of the World in honour of the dead and surviving victims of the Genocide.

- We commit to campaign against planned burial site exhumations of the victims of Matebeleland Gukurahundi Genocide without an Independent assembled team of

Forensic anthropologists and archaeologists to investigate and gather evidence of this crime against humanity

- We commit on calling on the international community, through the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) to support the people of Matebeleland to attain Truth, Justice, Reparations and Healing and this support will speak to the United Nations' Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide adopted 71 years ago.

- We profoundly commit ourselves to use Commemorative Memorial Days to campaign for the UNHRC to establish an independent and competent Matebeleland International Commission of Inquiry into the Matebeleland Gukurahundi Genocide for the purposes of establishing Truth and achieving Justice, Reparations and Healing for Matebeleland.

- We pledge our fervent or deep-seated and principled commitment to campaign for Truth, Justice, Reparations and Healing for Matebeleland people and all who have suffered from the evils of genocide in other parts of the world

- We strongly affirm the Rights of the people of Matebeleland to be free from tribalism, racism, discrimination, prejudice, mass displacement from their lands, cultural imperialism, educational and economic genocide in Zimbabwe

- We condemn the evils of tribalism, racism, discrimination, property rights violations, prejudice, mass land displacements, cultural imperialism, educational and economic genocide faced by people of Matebeleland and others

- We commit to equip our generation and generations to come with education/studies and research about the Matebeleland Gukurahundi Genocide and genocides in other parts of the World so as to understand causes and consequences of genocides around the World in order to prevent them

- We invite individuals, diverse traditional leadership, diverse organizations, the media, various institutions, various faith-based groups, diverse human rights organizations, political organizations and their leaderships in Matebeleland and in all parts of the civilized World to join us in our unshakable commitment to achieve Truth, Justice, Reparations and Healing for the people of Matebeleland and for all those people who have suffered the brunt of killings and displacements in Zimbabwe for being who they are.

For more details about the planned Memorial Day please email or telephone us on the following details:
Email: 1893informationpublicitysecs@gmail.com Tel: +44 (0) 7889 422 695
Released by 1893 MHRRM Information and Publicity Department, May 2019