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Genocide Petition Delivered
- Details
- Written by: Jointly M S Nkomo, Chief Ndiweni and John Burke
- Hits: 33
Another great Thursday to deliver a petition to the Prime Minister!
We congregated on the 5th December 2024, outside the newly "secured" Zimbabwe Embassy - they have got some grim looking metal security gated fabrications at the side and front entrances - to make the Embassy even less friendly or appealing to the Zimbabwean Diaspora - security concerns or Guilt? - we have to ask why these new gates - {photo on Flickr - click to see for yourself SIDE DOOR - 429 CORNER DOOR }.
True to form the guilty inside locked their doors - simply as we were there. Indeed they sent out a CIO to sit in his new BMW X6 to "observe us" - so we took their photos too - again on our Flickr Album of the day. {CLICK HERE TO SEE THE DAYS PHOTO ALBUM} Please note that due to technical constraints, the videos recorded today will take some considerable time to be 'compressed' in order to be displayed upon our Flickr Platform - so expect videos to be appearing by the weekend please.
We took some more photos with our "Zanu PF Must Go" banner and by 13:30 we sidled off towards Trafalgar Square and onto Whitehall. by 13:45 we were arranged opposite Downing Street - under the gaze of "Monty" at his commemorative statue. By the time we have said our hellos to the new supporters opposite Downing Street it was time to present our band of 6 petitioners to the Diplomatic Police Unit in control of Downing Street. Ronald T Mutumbi, was due to be the Organiser of the 6 of us today - but had unexpected problems with travel on the day - such a pity.
So we 6 lined up at the solid security gates {making the Zimbabwean Embassy gates looking a little flimsy!} at the entrance to Downing Street. Our Police Diplomatic Unit Escort - was a friendly as any tourist guide - calling us in by our first names! As some may know within those gates we have to go through Air Port Quality X-Ray machines to check all our bags, mobile phones or any metal objects.
State Ordered Genocide
- Details
- Written by: Tendai Christian Mapfumo and others
- Hits: 45
The Gukurahundi Genocide of 1983 to 1987 in Zimbabwe began with a desire and also a design by Robert Mugabe and his ZANU PF political party for one-party state rule and life presidency. For all that to be achieved Joshua Nkomo and ZAPU had to be eliminated.
“ Nkomo and his guerillas are germs in the country’s wounds and they have to be cleaned up with iodine” - Edgar Tekere ( ZANU PF stalwart)
Following Zimbabwe’s independence from British rule in 1980, political tension increased between two political groups in Zimbabwe, namely the ruling African National Union (ZANU), led by Robert Mugabe, and the Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU), led by Joshua Nkomo. Violence unleashed on the Ndebele people by the Mugabe-led government was a direct result of government efforts to silence the voices of minority groups and growing political critique from ZAPU.
In January 1983, the ZANU PF government of Robert Mugabe, in the newly independent Zimbabwe, launched a massive security clampdown on the Ndebele. This was both politically and ethnically motivated. At the heart of the operation was a strategy of state-ordered terror. It was perpetrated by a 4,000-strong all-Shona Fifth Brigade of the Zimbabwean National Army led by Perrance Shiri.
Although they both fought against white rule, and although Nkomo was minister of Home Affairs under Mugabe, both men distrusted each other. In 1982, Mugabe fired Nkomo, accusing him of plotting a coup to overthrow the newly independent country’s government, and promised to root out his supporters from positions of influence.
ZANU PF decided to say there were 'no go' areas, there were certain areas in the country where they would not allow a political party to participate in… These areas were where ZANLA forces had had a strong presence. ZAPU believed that would not be allowed. Nkomo actually made a very strong protest to Lord Staines to say that we can’t call that a free and fair election where you have one party refusing people to come and campaign in the areas where their forces are.
Zimbabwe Genocide Petition
- Details
- Written by: John Burke, Richard Gandari and others, inc BBC Africa
- Hits: 74
5th December 2024 at 14:00 to the Office of the UK Prime Minister,
Also by e-mail and post to The FCDO and the Commonwealth Secretariate in London. Also the UN OHCHR in Geneva
Some may know this as the Gukurahundi Genocide - but the Shona word of 'Gukurahundi' cannot ever convey the horrors and 'pure psychotic outrage' conducted sometime from 1983 (approx.) to 1987 when - due to this violent and heartless pressure the leader of ZAPU at that time Dr Joshua Nkomo, reluctantly agreed to subsume ZAPU into the newly created ZANU PF - laughingly termed the "UNITY ACCORD".
A lesson in violence and deceit that still haunts Zimbabwe to this day - as well as being an ongoing strategy of the Zanu PF regime ever since - and now continued by the complicit (in the genocide} E D Mnangagwa.
But returning to the word "GUKURAHUNDI" - the literal meaning, which loosely translates to "the early rain which washes away the chaff before the spring rains". However this can never represent the inhuman genocide which took place - instigated by Mugabe to enforce a one-party State.
The Beginnings
Identifying as a member or supporter of ZAPU became a death wish.
Under the then Prime Minister, Robert Mugabe, a caveat was promulgated, outlawing ZAPU and forfeiting all its properties to the State. Some of the properties belonged to ZPRA, the armed wing of ZAPU during the liberation struggle. Everything was seized and forfeited to the state. Dr Joshua Nkomo was persecuted and hounded into exile. His lieutenants, the late Dr Dumiso Dabengwa and the late Commander Lookout Masuku were thrown into Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison on trumped up charges.
Just like in East Germany in 1990, it has been four decades of denial and deafening silence.
The Evidence Slowly Emerging {Still}
But now, the new light is being shed on these days of horror. Thousands of historical documents that appear to expose the perpetrators are now becoming available in a raft of foreign archival collections. The documents are wide-ranging and include, among others, diplomatic correspondence, intelligence assessments and raw intelligence garnered by spies recruited from within the Zimbabwean government. These papers—augmented by the testimony of Zimbabwean witnesses finding courage in old age—appear to substantiate what survivors and scholars have always suspected but never been able to validate: Mugabe, then Prime Minister, was the prime architect of mass killings that were well-planned and systematically executed.
Rigging and Intimidation
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- Written by: Tendai Christian Mapfumo and others
- Hits: 81
As with every election since Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980, ZANU-PF has perfected the system of rigging. The majority of the election cycles since then have been marred with accusations, and most Zimbabweans will have memorized the entire process, including that the results will and have been rigged.
Fear and corruption plague each and every election in Zimbabwe. Whilst the people expect these systematic failures, it is the growing hopelessness amongst the people that is deeply worrying. To emphasis this, listen to Michael Sibangilizwe Nkomo, President of ZAPU; Indeed this link cites instability within SADC due to Mnangagwa's "meddling"
""Immediately after independence, minus freedom in 1980, a disturbing and false security threat was created by your government {ZANU PF} and apartheid South Africa, claiming instability in Matabeleland and the Midlands. Your party’s {ZANU PF} appetite for a one-party state compelled your government to go into an unholy alliance with Apartheid South Africa in an effort to destroy the long-standing progressive alliance of ZAPU/ZPRA and ANC/Umkhonto weSizwe whom you viewed as a threat to your respective governments.
Dissidents sponsored by your party {ZANU PF} and those of 'Super ZAPU' created by Apartheid South Africa created havoc in Matabeleland and Midlands as a prelude to the genocide that was to follow. This operation code named Gukurahundi turned to target Ndebele Speaking people and the whole world kept mum.""
From an "open letter to E D Mnangagwa from Michael Sibangilizwe Nkomo, ZAPU President dated 13th January 2024
Proving just how undemocratic these elections have been, the police has a tendency of shutting down rallies for the opposition, from the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) era and the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC), and arrested many of its supporters.
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