Mujuru not the right person to visit Gukurahundi graves

Am getting numerous friends asking for my opinion on Joyce T R Mujuru wanting to visit Gukurahundi mass graves,  sites and living survivors of the atrocities.

It's fact that I did at a stage publicly declare that I am giving my next vote to the Mujuru led ZimbabwePeople First party. It is also fact that at this stage I hold no position of authority within the party and so will not speak from any point of authority from or for the party but only from a personal perspective.

For the record I was at the rally in which Mujuru is quoted as having said she wants to visit the Gukurahundi sites and actually have a video recording of her entire speech. While the media may have blown a little out of proportion what she exactly said about her desire to get into the thick of things to get an understanding of the Gukurahundi atrocities as a whole, at this stage the specifics may be of no relevance.

I am not quite privy on how she was briefed prior to giving the speech but it was prudent that whatever was to be said about Gukurahundi had to be said extremely carefully and in the "right" context. "Right" in the sense that critics were already out waiting to hear what she was going to say or not to say about Gukurahundi being in the atrocities area.

Given a chance my advice would have been that she sticks to her original position that the issues to do with Gukurahundi will only be explained and solved in a true Truth and Reconciliation Commission which unfortunately can only be attained after we first collectively get rid of the present government which continues to want the issue to be shun away as if nothing happened.

Gukurahundi is an extremely sensitive issue which gets more complicated and more sensitive the longer ZANU PF decides to keep quiet about. It also unfortunately gets equally more complicated and sensitive when people who can not have any immediate influence on its way forward keep talking and making promises and commitments about. This is then where we the victims begin to believe that people are only trying to use the issue for their individual political expedience more than trying to formulate a closure to us the victims.

Political leaders trying to get into Matabeleland hearts through using Gukurahundi need to take time and understand that this issue has now stretched into the hands of a new generation, a generation which either only witnessed the atrocities with young eyes and failed to understand what was happening or have only heard of the atrocities and are eager to see justice being done on the perpetrators or even on their children. These need to be handled extremely different from the older generation which experienced the atrocities and remain intimidated and manipulative up to today.

Personally, I would say at this stage it is a little bit out of mood for any political leader to vouch to want to go and visit the Gukurahundi mass graves and sites or to hope to go and talk to these elderly people whose hearts are still bleeding and go away with no immediate solution to the situation other than just claiming to have been there and gain personal glory.

Before making any commitments on Gukurahundi sites, it is essential for anyone wanting to go there to note that some of these sites have been closed since the Gukurahundi soldiers were pulled out of the areas. Not even have any of our ancestral mediums have been there, not even close relatives of people believed to be buried in some of those mass graves have been there not even some survivors of the beatings have ever gone back to those sites since then. Joshua Nkomo himself went into Government and passed on without making that kind of an effort because of the certain complexity of the matter.

This then leaves the communities standing aside and asking themselves who will be the first person to get to those sites. Indeed while Mujuru may be the next possible person to lead the country, at this stage it certainly does not allow for her to be the first person to get to those Gukurahundi sites while the hearts of the victims still bleed. It's more difficult for her at this juncture to be there while some of the victims and purple are still convinced in their hearts that by virtue of her being in the government that executed the atrocities she played a hand in them though some of us maybe convinced otherwise but to them not until proven by the Truth Commission.

My position therefore stands that perhaps Mujuru or any other political leader for that matter should at this stage hold on talking about visiting the Gukurahundi sites and victims until a real healing process is found and effected and not in the form of this continuously referenced unity accord.

That's my take.