Government explores legally,culturally acceptable processes ED to meet Matabeleland leaders over Gukurahundi reburials
PRESIDENT Emmerson Mnangagwa is expected to convene a consensus-building meeting with Matabeleland traditional leaders soon to co-ordinate and fast-track exhumations and reburials of victims of post-independence civil disturbances that rocked Matabeleland and parts of the Midlands province.
Exhumations and reburials of Gukurahundi victims was one of the key resolutions agreed between Government and Matabeleland civil groups and traditional leaders when they met with the President in March last year. A follow-up meeting held on 14 February in Bulawayo established that progress on implementing last year’s resolutions — which include the issuance of civil documents to surviving children of victims of the disturbances and ceding the Matabeleland Zambezi Water Project to locals — was being held up by funding constraints and bureaucracy.
President Mnangagwa, who is following through on his promise to ensure that the country confronts its ugly past, has since undertaken to superintend over the implementation process. On Friday, the Minister of Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage, Kazembe Kazembe, led a Government delegation that included Registrar-General Clemence Masango and Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Permanent Secretary Mrs Virginia Mabhiza to lay the ground for the commencement of issuance of civil documents to surviving spouses and the victims’ children.
Mrs Mabhiza, who is head of secretariat in the engagement and dialogue with Matabeleland civil society organisations, told our Harare Bureau the delegation “shall mostly deal with the logistics for providing birth certificates”.
“Most of the issues that are outstanding are to do with the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Registrar-General, and that is to do with the issuance of birth and death certificates,” she said.
The team will also meet with the civil society leadership. Ceding of the Zambezi Matabeleland Water Project, she added, was already at an advanced stage.
“We have also been acting on some of the socio-economic needs such as the provision of water through drilling boreholes.”
She said President Mnangagwa will soon preside over a consensus-building meeting to prepare for commencement of exhumations and reburials. Government is reportedly exploring ways to facilitate legally and culturally acceptable processes.
Mrs Mabhiza said: “On the other difficult issues such as exhumations and reburials, we will soon have a consensusbuilding meeting with the chiefs, the civil society groupings and other stakeholders, including the National Peace and Reconciliation Commission, to plan the way forward. After the consensusbuilding exercise, we will then craft a way forward in terms of how to facilitate the exhumations.
“This will also bring on board our development partners and any interested funders to bankroll the exercise.”
All the processes will reportedly be done within the confines of the law, which also entails drafting legal statutes to facilitate implementation. However, the guidance would come out of the planned indaba.
“The consensus-building meeting shall involve His Excellency, but we do not have a date yet, but it is going to be very soon.
You may be aware that we were expecting the chiefs to attend the meeting that was held in Bulawayo, but unfortunately, due to some budgetary and other logistical challenges the Ministry of Local Government (and Public Works) was not ready to sponsor the chiefs to be on board during that meeting.”
The law provides only for the Minister of Home Affairs to grant an order for exhumation. Government has expanded the scope of the engagements to include other civic organisations outside the ambit of the Matabeleland Collective. The Second Republic, under President Mnangagwa, has opened up discussions on Gukurahundi, which claimed thousands of lives after violence flared up in the Matabeleland and Midlands provinces soon after independence.