Gukurahundi a Moment of Madness

In January 1983 the ZANU PF government led by the then Primeminister of Zimbabwe Robert Mugabe deployed the 5th brigade in Matebeleland known as Gukurahundi.They claimed that the 5th brigade was deployed to fight the dissidents. What followed from 1983-1986 were reports of innocent civillians being murded, raped, brutallised, burnt alive, detained without trial and their property destroyed. Villagers were left to starve to death after their crops were destroyed and curfew was imposed in most parts of Matebeland which restricted peolple fromleaving their homes.Despited overwhelming evidence that was produced by journalists, civic organisations and religious leaders the government of Robert Mugabe denied that solidiers were killing inocent cilivians. The government said it was the dissidents who were killing the civilians. The terror continued until the signing of the unity accord in 1987.It is estimated that over 20 000 people were killed and many more dissappeared.Property worth hudrends of thousands of dollars was destroyed and this included livestock which was shot dead by the soldiers.Hundrends of people were left disabled .The report of the commission which was set to investigate the actrocities was never made public.

The documentary

Gukurahundi a Moment of Madness is a 25 minute documentary which revisits this sad period and try to examnine why it happened.
The aim of the documentary is to break the taboo that no one should talk about gukurahundi and its effects on the people of Zimbabwe. Each time someone talks about gukurahundi, the person is labelled a tribalist by the government and is accussed of opening old wounds, but the fact is that the wounds are still fresh. The people still have a lot of unanswered questions.They wantto knowwahy a black government wanted to wipe them.There are a lot of people up to now who do not know happened to their relatives. In the African culture you can only be a peace when you have buried your relative and performed what we call Umbuyiso. (Bringing the spirit of the dead home)Many people in the affected areas can not perform these rituals because they do not know where their relatives are buried .The documentary also aims to prove that political violence in Zimbabwe did not start in 2000 but it dates back to the days of the liberation struggle. The argument in the documentary is that ZANU PF was always violent from its formation and what is happening now is just a continuation from where they left in 1987 after the unity accord and they have changed the strategy because now the world is a global village.
There is a lot of fear in Zimbabwe especially in Matebeleland and this can be attributed to gukurahundi. A lot of people no longer have confidence in the election system and there are afraid to support a candidate of their choice freely because they are afraid that they can be killed for that, like what happened in the early 80s.Many people were killed because theY supported PF ZAPU.The government is yet to apologised about what happened, and those who were affected are yet to be compansated for their loss.We need to know the whole truth of happened. The issue of tribalism in Zimbabwe can also be linked to gukurahundi.The Ndebele people do not trust the shona has peolple because they always see them as killers and they view the shona language as a language of oppression. There is need for people to be open about this issue so that there can be social cohesion and true nation buiding where the people of Zimbabwe see themselves as one nation.

The documentary questions why Mugabe created the 5th brigade and they are a number of issues that come up, first the fact that he wanted to create a one party state and Zapu was the stumbling block. Some people believe Mugabe wanted to revenge because the Ndebele used to raid the Shona people and take their cattle. There is another theory that Mugabe was bitter coz his father left them when they were young and went to Bulawayo to settle with Ndebele women. The theory also says Mugabe’s father is originally from Sudan. People interviwed in this documentary include Former minister Enos Nkala, Former Governor Welshman Mabhena, Historian Phathisa Nyathi, Sherry Appel of Amani Trust, Rtd Bishop Henry Karlen among other people. Wealso visited one of the mine shafts in Nkayi where it is alleged some of the victims were thrown in.

Resources permiting the documentary is going to be shown in film festivals in Sourthern Africa and beyond. We will also produce DVDs that will be distributed in the community as well as outside the country. A number of Uiversities in Africa have shown interst in the documentary beause they want to use it as resourse material in some of their courses.This can be another outlet for the DVD. Civic organisations who deal with human rights issues have also shown interest and some of them like the Botswana center of Human rights and a number of them in Kenya are already showing it in their communities.