By A Correspondent- ZANU PF secretary for administration, Obert Mpofu has said victims of the Gukurahundi killings do need development, not a reminder of their painful history.

Gukurahundi is a term used to refer to killings in Matabeleland and Midlands in the 1980s which resulted in the death of an estimated 20 000 people.

It was carried out by the North Korean trained 5th Brigade which was an elite regiment of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces. Gukurahundi is derived from a Shona language term which loosely translates to “the early rain which washes away the chaff before the spring rains”.

The nation has so far failed to find an everlasting solution to the issue with the Unity Accord signed by Zimbabwe’s two major nationalist movements namely the Zimbabwe African People’s Union led by Joshua Nkomo and the Zimbabwe African National Union led by Robert Mugabe only managing the situation thus far.

Speaking in Jotsholo on Saturday, 28 May 2022 at the burial of a traditional leader, Chief Vusumuzi Khumalo Mabhikwa of Lupane, Mpofu said everyone talking about Gukurahundi was not a nation-builder. He said:

… abantu kabafuni ukuti babe lokuKhunjuzwa izinto ezibuhlungu bafuni intuthuko besiya phambili [people don’t want to be reminded of painful things, they want development going forward.]

Others say truth, justice and reconciliation is the only solution to the matter.