News / National
WATCH: Talking about Gukurahundi is irresponsible - Mnangagwa advisor
10 Dec 2017 at 15:55hrs | Views
SPECIAL ADVISER to President Emmerson Mnangagwa, Christopher Mutsvangwa, told Aljazeera that bringing up the Gukurahundi issue was "simply unhelpful" and "irresponsible".
"Zimbabwe needs a break," he told Al Jazeera.
"To continuously re-dig its past, to settle scores from the past, as if it cannot grasp the future … It diverts energy away from what should be done.
"Every country followed a tortured history … You make mistakes. You make false starts."
In January 1983, when the North Korean-trained Fifth Brigade (5 Brigade) of the army was deployed in Matabeleland North, Mnangagwa was Mugabe's minister of state security. That portfolio brought with it control over the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO), a Rhodesian institution that was partly reconfigured in 1980 when Mugabe took power at independence.
Ordinary Zimbabweans are wary, whispering anxiously about his alleged role in the 1980s Gukurahundi massacres.
Around 20 000 Zimbabweans are believed to have died in the massacres as the military crushed perceived dissidents in Matabeleland and Midlands regions. "Gukurahundi" is Shona for "the first rains which washes away the chaff (from the last harvest), before the spring rains."
"Zimbabwe needs a break," he told Al Jazeera.
"To continuously re-dig its past, to settle scores from the past, as if it cannot grasp the future … It diverts energy away from what should be done.
"Every country followed a tortured history … You make mistakes. You make false starts."
In January 1983, when the North Korean-trained Fifth Brigade (5 Brigade) of the army was deployed in Matabeleland North, Mnangagwa was Mugabe's minister of state security. That portfolio brought with it control over the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO), a Rhodesian institution that was partly reconfigured in 1980 when Mugabe took power at independence.
Ordinary Zimbabweans are wary, whispering anxiously about his alleged role in the 1980s Gukurahundi massacres.
Around 20 000 Zimbabweans are believed to have died in the massacres as the military crushed perceived dissidents in Matabeleland and Midlands regions. "Gukurahundi" is Shona for "the first rains which washes away the chaff (from the last harvest), before the spring rains."
Source - aljazeera
