News / National
'Govt has to burn down all villages infected with dissidents'
12 Nov 2017 at 05:27hrs | Views
Chronicle 5 March 1983
The offensive by the Government of Zimbabwe continued, with Minister of State for Security, Emmerson Mnangagwa, making a public statement on 4 March, at a rally held not far from Lupane.
His statement was reported in The Chronicle, 5 March 1983.
'He told his audience that [the] government had "an option" of "burning down all the villages infected with dissidents."
He warned, "the campaign against dissidents can only succeed if the infrastructure which nurtures them is destroyed."
In a supercilious manner he chillingly described dissidents as "cockroaches" and the Fifth Brigade as "DDT" brought in to eradicate them'.
The very next day the largest recorded massacre occurred at Ciwale in Northern Lupane with the death of 55 people.
'Mnangagwa, in these statements and in others he made later, made clear plainly that the action against the civilian population of Matabeleland was part of a deliberate state policy'
The offensive by the Government of Zimbabwe continued, with Minister of State for Security, Emmerson Mnangagwa, making a public statement on 4 March, at a rally held not far from Lupane.
His statement was reported in The Chronicle, 5 March 1983.
'He told his audience that [the] government had "an option" of "burning down all the villages infected with dissidents."
He warned, "the campaign against dissidents can only succeed if the infrastructure which nurtures them is destroyed."
In a supercilious manner he chillingly described dissidents as "cockroaches" and the Fifth Brigade as "DDT" brought in to eradicate them'.
The very next day the largest recorded massacre occurred at Ciwale in Northern Lupane with the death of 55 people.
'Mnangagwa, in these statements and in others he made later, made clear plainly that the action against the civilian population of Matabeleland was part of a deliberate state policy'
Source - chronicle
