Britain slated over Mugabe massacres

BRITAIN adopted a policy of “wilful blindness” towards atrocities carried out by Robert Mugabe’s army in Zimbabwe in massacres in 1983, research has claimed.

The UK Government engaged in a “conspiracy of silence” while up to 20,000 civilians were massacred in Matabeleland, according to Dr Hazel Cameron of the University of St Andrews.

Her research, which was self-funded, investigated state violence in the newly independent Zimbabwe committed by an army unit known as the Fifth Brigade.

The unit was a division of the Zimbabwean National Army and some of its soldiers were trained by the British Ministry of Defence.

According to newly released documents obtained by Dr Cameron, British officials in Zimbabwe were “consistent in their efforts to minimise the magnitude of Fifth Brigade atrocities” during the peak period of the massacres, known as Gukurahundi.

The episode came after Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s first prime minister, launched a “major security clampdown” which started with a curfew, arbitrary arrests and detentions without charge, in North Matabeleland in January 1983.

For the next nine months, the Fifth Brigade killed, tortured, raped and burned alive thousands of the Ndebele people claimed to be dissidents or affiliates of the opposition party ZAPU (Zimbabwean African People’s Union).

In the first six weeks alone, between 3,000 and 5,000 were killed.

Dr Cameron, a lecturer in international relations, said: “It is quite clear from these documents that one of the major concerns for the British at the time was the reputation of their own army and British public opinion as opposed to the ongoing atrocities and human violations.

“That the British Government chose to adopt a policy of wilful blindness towards the atrocities constituted naked realpolitik.”