via ‘Mphoko unfit for national healing’ – DailyNews Live 17 June 2015
HARARE – Former National Healing minister Moses Mzila-Ndlovu says Vice President Phelekezela Mphoko is unfit to lead the country’s national healing process as seen in his alleged failure to come to grips with “his own Gukurahundi-era culpability”.
Mzila-Ndlovu said Mphoko’s recent and controversial utterances on the massacres of an estimated 20 000 innocent people by the army in the early 1980s, mainly in Matabeleland and the Midlands, proved that he should not assume responsibility for reconciliation in the country.
Mzila-Ndlovu spoke in the wake of Mphoko telling the National Assembly last week that he would table a law in Parliament soon to promote national healing.
“He is unfit to be there because he is a member of the party that committed one of the worst human rights violations in Zimbabwe during the 1980s. For all what we have gathered, he was part of the system during Gukurahundi.
“So there is no way a perpetrator of Gukurahundi would want to see justice. How then do we talk about healing and reconciliation when the perpetrators are actually leading a pseudo healing process?
“All those who were responsible for the mass murders should be arrested,” Mzila-Ndlovu fumed.
He said Zanu PF was exhibiting “an insensitive and arrogant approach” to Gukurahundi “because the party knows that it is ruling and nothing can happen for now”.
“But that doesn’t mean we have been healed or we have forgotten about the genocide. The wounds inflicted by (Rhodesian leader) Ian Smith have never been swept under the carpet so much so that Zanu PF every time, be it Heroes’ holiday or any other national holiday, they revise that memory and we have nothing against that.
But the problem we have is the hand-picking of issues which we should talk about and forget,” Mzila-Ndlovu said.
He said perpetrators of Gukurahundi should face international criminal law.
“It was interesting to see Sudanese president fleeing from South Africa. That is the treatment that should be given to all genocide proponents. Those who led the Gukurahundi massacres should be arrested and face the music,” he said.
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