via Outrage as police bar Gukurahundi prayer meeting | SW Radio Africa by Mthulisi Mathuthu on Tuesday, January 21, 2014
Police in Bulawayo have been heavily criticized after they blocked a Gukurahundi prayer meeting which they had initially cleared.
Organised by the Bulawayo-based pressure group Ibhetshu Likazulu the prayer meeting was due to take place on Saturday at the Baptist Church in the city center.
But the event failed to take off after plain clothes police officers pitched up shortly before the start of the meeting and ordered the congregants to disperse. A Monday Southern Eye report quoted organizers saying the police claimed that their intelligence showed that the meeting was not a prayer meeting but a demonstration.
Ibhetshu Likazulu Secretary General, Mbuso Fuzwayo, confirmed the development. In an interview with SW Radio Africa he said the police were on Tuesday still questioning some of their members with regards to the aborted Saturday meeting. He emphasized that the meeting was indeed a prayer meeting for the victims of the genocide and ‘follow up crackdowns on the people of Zimbabwe.’
The police ban enraged the participants, among whom were former Archbishop of the Roman Catholic Church Pius Ncube, and former National Healing minister Moses Mzila-dlovu. According to the report Ncube, a fierce critic of the ZANU PF government policies, confronted the police and ‘asked them who they were to stop people from meeting with God.’
Ncube is a leading advocate for justice for the victims of the 1980s Gukurahundi genocide which left an estimated 20,000 people dead.
ZANU PF politburo member Sikhanyiso Ndlovu provoked fury Monday after he was quoted in the Zimbabwe Mail accusing the organizers of the meeting for trying to gain political mileage over the issue of the Gukurahundi. Ndlovu said the issue was ‘dealt with’ a long time ago through the 1987 Unity Accord signed between ZANU PF and PF ZAPU and should not be revived.
Activists from across the country resorted to the social media to heap personal abuse on Ndlovu for his comments which they invariably described as ‘insensitive’ and ‘idiotic.’ An irate Fuzwayo said it was ‘because of the actions of people like Ndlovu’ that it has become difficult to achieve justice for the victims of the Matabeleland massacres.
It is not the first time for the police to stop gatherings to do with Mugabe’s 1980s genocide. In 2012 they stopped a Matobo family from conducting a reburial ceremony of Mvulo Nyathi, who was allegedly beaten to death by the Fifth Brigade in 1984. Two years earlier they had blocked an exhibition by visual artist Owen Maseko depicting the Gukurahundi at the Bulawayo Art Gallery. Maseko was arrested and charged with undermining the authority of the President and ‘causing offence to persons of a particular race.’ The case was then referred to the Constitutional Court after his lawyers argued that criminalizing creative arts was an infringement on Maseko’s right to freedom of expression.
This case has been ongoing and it was last week that the Chief Justice, Godfrey Chidyausiku, reserved his ruling after the state conceded that it may not have a case against Maseko.
COMMENTS
still no freedom in this demonic,regime, the goblins are coming to eat the police and army for torturing their own children
Robert Mugabe you can seek solence from your paid agents the churches which we know as a matter of fact that they are in your payroll. I am afraid its too late for that. They will not absolve you of the crimes you committed. Your maker is waiting for you. And those false prophet’s who tell you otherwise are also guilty as charged. You will burn in hell that is for sure. Pray as much as you can but its rather too late for you.
What has changed what! This regime is worse than Smiths and I dont care who says what.
Sizani bantu. Ngubana olabondofa abaqinileyo abanga khona ukumithisa u Bona Mugabe? Kufune azale izilwane emulini ka Robert.
Amapholisa lama CIO yizikhothamdidi zikaMugabe. Badla uthuvi bexhegu leli.
Yaah, the guilty are indeed afraid. They created the dissident problem so they could revenge against uMthwakazi and destroy Joshua Nkomo. Now they are feeling so guilty, they dont know where to hide. They dont even want the subject of the atrocities they committed against innocent villagers discussed; but the GUKURAHUNDI SUBJECT is refusing to die down, try as they might.
They thought using the gukurahundi to spread the Shona language in Mthwakazi would somehow neutralise uMthwakazi. Hell no, Mthwakazi is NOT FOR TURNING; WE WILL REMAIN WHO WE ARE WITH OR WITHOUT GUKURAHUNDI. TRY AS MUCH AS THEY CAN!!!!!!
It shows how bad ZPF are that they even ban prayer meetings! Pure evil! Why are CIO at a prayer meeting?
The obsession with enslaving the people of Matabeleland also makes no sense to me, but I guess that ZPF also fear publicity pertaining to this topic.
The presence in the media of individuals like Sikhanyiso Ndlovu is also very disappointing. I wonder if they do this for cash or out of fear?
Gukurahundi Mugabe is an asshhole and an idot. There is nothing exceptional about him losing his siblings or being abandoned by a father. This is common in many African families.
President Jacob Zuma does not even know his father, whom he lost when he was about five. He took up a job as a gardner in Durban at a very young age, to help fend for his family. There were no missionaries to help him, so he never went to school.
He spent ten years on Robben Island; out there in the sea, surrounded by shalks and all sort of evil underwater creatures – one simply couldnt escape.
Robert Mugabe set comfortably at Chikurubi, and proceeded with his education. Besides, he only took over responsibility over the family at a ripe age of 21; many African children do this at the age of nine or ten; especially these days of HIV/AIDS.
Depite all the suffering, Jacob Zuma is a convivial and jovial man; easy going and to engage. He is not as angry as Gukurahundi Mugabe always is.
Zuma never gukurahundied his fellow African citizens for holding different political views from him or for being of a different tribe and language to his. Instead he was a peacemaker, who worked hard and brought peace to KwaZulu Natal between the IFP and the ANC.
Gukurahundi Mugabe should stop the excuses. He is simply an evil devilish two-legged creature ever to walk on planet earth. He should simply die and go to hell a million times. Satanic evil devil. The Biblical name GABRIEL has real been desecrated by this 90 year old evil dark skinned creature!!