Damaging claims on Gukurahundi released

Source: Damaging claims on Gukurahundi released – DailyNews Live 20 January 2017

Fungi Kwaramba

HARARE – The Americans have released damaging claims of who among
Zimbabwe’s ruling class allegedly directed the Gukurahundi massacres of
the early 1980s, in which an estimated 20 000 innocent civilians were
killed by the army mainly in Matabeleland and the Midlands.

According to declassified Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) reports that
were released on Wednesday this week, very senior government and military
officials – whose names the Daily News has opted to withhold – allegedly
plotted at the time to annihilate Zapu and the Ndebeles, as Zanu PF sought
to create a one-party State.

The reports further claimed that a rattled Zanu PF leadership also feared
at the time that the then in power apartheid South Africa government,
working with unrepentant Rhodesians, would join forces with the late
revered Zapu leader Joshua Nkomo, to destabilise the new Zimbabwe
government.

The released CIA documents also reveal how the USA viewed President Robert
Mugabe’s new government in the early 1980s as a key player in regional
peace-building efforts, as well as, bizarrely, in Washington’s fight
against the Soviet Union during the Cold War era.

The Americans also feared then that Mugabe would be assassinated, and
overtly and covertly worked to keep the nonagenarian in power  to protect
their interests.

The released documents also reveal in startling detail how the army
allegedly “blocked all movement and stopped all food shipment into what
was then a drought stricken region”, to starve perceived supporters of
Nkomo.

The Americans claim that Zanu PF wanted to create a one-party state soon
after independence, and the Gukurahundi massacres were an attempt at
breaking “the will of the remainder of the Zapu leadership to resist
absorption into a one-party State”.

“We believe Harare’s allegations that the dissidents are directly
controlled by Zapu political leaders are untrue and that they are intended
to provide justification for suppressing Nkomo and his party,” the
documents say.

Although the Zimbabwe government has maintained a thick veil on
Gukurahundi, the CIA reveals that the total number of dissidents who
operated in the western parts of the country did not number more than 300
people.

“The 5th Brigade, the Presidential Guard, and the North Korean trained
People’s militia – whose loyalty is first to the ruling party – were
created to solidify Zanu political control over the military,” reads other
parts of the CIA’s reports.