PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe had a plan to establish a “Zezuru only” crack army unit to deal with the Gukurahundi insurrection of the early to mid-80s, blamed for the deaths of over 20 000 civilians under the guise of hunting down a handful of dissidents, former Vice-President Joice Mujuru has said.
Source: Mugabe’s ‘Zezuru Gukurahundi crack unit’ exposed – NewsDay Zimbabwe March 13, 2017
BY BLESSED MHLANGA
Mujuru, now leading the opposition National People’s Party (NPP), told a meeting with Diaspora business women, during her tour in London to celebrate International Women’s Day that while she was a Cabinet minister during the Gukurahundi era, Mugabe’s plans were even concealed to the military’s top brass – including her late husband Solomon Mujuru – who was head of the army.
The former Zanu PF number two and now opposition leader said Mugabe had sown seeds of division during the struggle, when he discouraged unity between liberation war armies, Zipra and Zanla, under the banner of Zipa.
Mujuru argued that had the Zipa plan worked, then the post-war genocide would have been avoided.
“He (Mugabe) had his own ideas, because when he came (to the war front) he found soldiers having already agreed to work together as Zipa. This brought together Zanla and Zipra, if Mugabe had allowed that argument to work, we would not have had Gukurahundi because that arrangement had already started uniting the two armies,”she said.
Mujuru revealed that NPP’s head of security, retired army colonel Beta Guveya was approached by Mugabe to recruit a “Zezuru-only brigade from Zvimba” to create what became known as the 5 Brigade trained by North Koreans and responsible for the atrocities. Zvimba is Mugabe’s rural home and Guveya was a military trainer in the early years of independence.
“This friction he had created, I did not know its magnitude, I only knew just recently, this year or end of last year when Beta told me that he had been approached by Mugabe just after independence and instructed to recruit soldiers from Zvimba, so that he could turn them into the lethal force. He then reported this to my late husband (Solomon),” she said.
According to Mujuru, Guveya then refused to be part of the sinister plot, leaving Mugabe to use “his own ways”.
“The instructions for this unit of the army were not coming from the normal channels of the army, but directly from Mugabe, it was his own thing,” she said.
She said as Women’s Affairs minister at that time she was totally in the dark and did not know that soldiers were in the countryside killing, raping and maiming innocent people.
Mujuru said she has found it hard to read a report by the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace on the atrocities titled Breaking the Silence that Mugabe has forced to remain unpublished.
“You will not be able to sleep if you read the horrific tales,” Mujuru said.
Mugabe came short of apologising publicly for the genocide, describing the killings as a “moment of madness”.
COMMENTS
Fascinating reading. Guveya told Solomon over 30 years ago, but Solomon never mentioned it to his war vet wife. She only found out about it a couple of months ago, and had been ‘totally in the dark’ about Gukurahundi at the time, and is now unable to sleep. The audience must have been enthralled.
Mujuru appears to have migrated from zanupf with the same mentality that only people in political leadership are intelligent. She is now trying to blame Mugabe for the horrible things that she was complicit having been a trusted cadre for many decades and also on the inner circle of Mugabe loyalists. Mujuru is not fooling anyone by trying to praise ZIPA when she played a significant role in suppressing ZIPA Commanders as Mugabe’s ‘foot soldier. If my memory saves me well Mujuru is reported to have instructed and commanded her juniors during the ZIPA era to burn all literature which was used by ZIPA cadres at Chitepo College in Mozambique. Mujuru is just a power hungry hypocrite and not presidential material and not even ministerial material. She was just riding on Mugabe and her husband’s wings. Let’s hope that she worked for her PHD but she doesn’t sound like a University graduate maybe the standards of university education in Zimbabwe have sunk so low that anyone can be a proud holder of a PHD degree such as her sidekick Grace Mugabe who is famous for getting a PHD degree in less than 3 months and whose thesis cannot be accounted for. What a shame!!!!!
We villagers can only pray for more splits in Zanu PF and more revelations from any quarter. Say more please. Anything that will make the people choose someone else at the ballot box is good for us. For 40 years we have waited, July looks far but Canaan must be near.