Forces of darkness were emboldened; they felt empowered and legitimised as justice was suspended and denied to the Matabeleland nation; international human rights bodies sacrificed their credibility and looked away in the face of injustice. Everybody including the law, fell silent as the predominantly Shona government of Robert Mugabe falsely labelled Ndebele people dissidents to justice activating an exclusive and especially trained armed militia – the Fifth Brigade – to liquidate unarmed civilians in Matabeleland and the Midlands between 1983 and 1984.

Mugabe and his allies named the operation ‘Gukurahundi’ – a term derived from the Shona language, which translates loosely to “the early rain which washes away the chaff before the spring rains”. In the grotesque military operation that characterised Gukurahundi, for nothing but who they were, Ndebele people were stripped of their humanity, stripped of their dignity, stripped of their liberty, stripped of their freedoms and stripped of all human rights. Communities were physically and mentally tortured; residents were locked in, denied access to food, women raped before their children and husbands, husbands butchered before their wives, unborn babies ripped out of their mothers’ wombs and crushed to death. Those community members spared life were forced to watch in real time and horror life being painfully denied to loved neighbours and relatives.

FURTHER READING:

Gukurahundi Atrocities