Paul Nyathi

MDC-T Secretary General Douglas has shocked many after he made a statement claiming that the Gukurahundi genocide of the eighties was a civil war.

In a statement on his official Facebook page where he was endorsing President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s out of favour Political Actors Dialogue, POLAD, Mwonzora claimed that his so called Civil War was ended by a dialogue between ZANU’s Robert Mugabe and PF ZAPU’s Joshua Nkomo.

The Robert Mugabe regime with Emmerson Mnangagwa as State Minister deployed a battalion of soldiers into Matabeleland and killed over 20 000 unarmed civilians in the atrocities that Mwonzora declared as a civil war.

Below is Mwonzora’s full statement:

Our position on dialogue has never changed. Dialogue remains the only sustainable way to resolve the national crisis.

For any dialogue process to work and produce results it must be genuine, inclusive and unconditional.

In this regard we believe that any dialogueprocess in Zimbabwe must include political parties, churches, labour, civil society and
business. That is the only way to guaranteethat the dialogue process does not produce an elite pact but a sustainable and satisfactory outcome for all our peoples.

Zimbabwe’s history is full of evidence that dialogue works. After a gruelling war of liberation the warring parties had to resort to
dialogue at Lancaster House.

After the civil war in Matabeleland and the Midlands, Zanu PF and PF Zapu sat down and concluded the Unity Accord. After the violence of 2008, the major parties sat down and produced the Global Political Agreement.

The fact that there will be dialogue does not preclude people from embarking on lawful action like peaceful demonstrations that are permitted under section 59 of our constitution.