South African lawyers to hear evidence from Gukurahundi survivors

Johannesburg- Scores of witnesses and survivors of the Matabeleland massacres are expected to give evidence before a team of South African lawyers in Johannesburg this week.The three day hearings began on Wednesday and will end on Friday.

The South African lawyers agreed to represent the families of the victims pro bono following months of negotiations with officials from the Patriotic Alliance of Mthwakazi Unions (PAMU), a smaller opposition party from the region.

Some witnesses and survivors are said to have submitted sworn affidavits and statements to the lawyers.Pro bono, Latin for the public good is when lawyers donate their time to assist those who cannot afford legal fees.

According to one Pamu official, some of the witnesses who had agreed to give evidence before the lawyers later developed cold feet fearing reprisals back home.

"We are calling on all those who lost relatives, parents,witnesses and survivors to come forward and meet the lawyers who have volunteered their time to help the people of Matabeleland get justice," said David Ndlovu, one of the Puma officials.

Ndlovu said those who are willing to give evidence should go to Pamu offices in Johannesburg but he refused to say where the offices were located.

Ndlovu said he was also afraid of the CIO, Zimbabwe's dreaded secret service whose operatives were accused by human rights activists of being responsible for the disappearance of hundreds of Zapu supporters during the 80s.

The massacres of the estimated 20 000 villagers and Zapu officials were carried out by Zimbabwe's notorious army unit, the Fifth Brigade which the then Prime Minister Robert Mugabe christened ‘Gukurahundi' - which in his native Shona language means ‘the early rain which washes away the chaff before the spring rains.'

The brigade was composed exclusively of Shona speaking recruits who were probably trying to emulate Cambodia's Khamer Rouge in savagery.Soon after they were deployed in Matabeleland and some parts of the Midlands, the Fifth Brigade soldiers went on the rampage.

Its targets were Ndebele, Kalanga, Venda,Xhosa and Sotho speaking ethnic groups of the province who were the main backers of Joshua Nkomo, Mugabe's main political rival in the 80s.

Suspected dissidents were shot on sight, others were rounded up,put in huts which were then set on fire, young men were shot in cold blood and their mothers forced to dig their graves while chanting pro-Mugabe and anti-Nkomo slogans.

Pregnant mothers had their wombs ripped open with bayonets attached to North Korean designed Kalashnikov combat rifles.

Mugabe said the soldiers had been deployed to reign in former Zipra cadres who had turned dissidents soon after independence but he failed to explain why so many innocent women and children were among the dead.

Human rights organisations put the figure of the dead at around 20 000 while thousands went missing and now presumed dead.

Ndlovu says he hopes the families of the dead will get justice one day.In 1986 five members of the brigade were arrested for the killing of a Ndebele speaking army officer, Edius Ndlovu and his wife along the Victoria Falls road.
The soldiers were sentenced to death by the High Court in Bulawayo but they were later pardoned by the President.


Aliqunywe Mthwakazi...