Thread by @SiphoMalunga

1/ Today I attended the commemoration of the end of the Gukurahundi genocide which was brought about by the Unity Accord between PF ZAPU & Zanu PF. I had the honour & privilege to speak at the event.Before I share what I said in my remarks I would like to share some observations.

2/ I was struck by the extraordinarily high police presence.There were more police than participants. The police cld argue they put most of their pple to support but given the history of conduct this cld only have been meant to intimidate pple from not attending. And it worked.

3/The behaviour of the police was generally appropriate except for their unlawful refusal for the organizers to carry a mock coffin during the march from Joshua Nkomo statue to Stanley Hall. It's not clear on what basis they did so & unwilling to be deterred, organisers relented.

4/ A couple of issues from my remarks. There's been talk on the # of pple killed or disappeared. Denialists first denied the killings & now seek to downplay the #s.We may never know how many pple were killed & or disappeared but based on the patterns & kill rate, the #s are +20K.

5/ I spoke about the recent zero pass rates at schools in Matabeleland which came out bottom 10 in the recent Grade 7 exams."What does this hv to do with Gukurahundi!" detractors may scream. The answer's that together with birth certificates, it has everything to do with it.

6/When Gukurahundi arrived in rural Matabeleland, headmasters & teachers were primary targets. In every district it killed & raped teachers.There were many reasons for this including that they led local Zapu structures.The other was to systematically disrupt learning in Matland.

7/ By systematically attacking teachers, the 5th Brigade decimated the education system in the region. Dissidents played their part too but the net result was a deliberate emptying of teachers and other professionals from rural Matabeleland.

8/ The net result is that decades later, Matabeleland continues to endure the intergenerational legacy & impact of Gukurahundi.This manifests in the education sector among others.There was zero development in Matabeleland between post-war 1980 & 1987 compared to other regions.

9/An apt critique of the Unity Agt is its failure to include a special devpt & recovery plan for Matland to help the region catch up the lost post-war peace dividend.Then again, it wasn't really a negotiation of equals. A good place to start fixing the Gukurahundi issue is there.