The Gukurahundi Genocide awareness campaigns that kicked off last month in Matabeleland North and South are poorly attended.
A close source to ZimEye revealed that most of the awareness meetings that he has conducted under his jurisdiction are poorly attended.
l can confirm to you that all the meetings are poorly attended and the Gukurahundi Genocide survivors have called on the perpetrator who is the lead in this project to apologize and come in person not through Traditional leadership.
”l believe that the message has reached home since the perpetrator has his agents amongst the team that is part of the awareness outreach participants,” Source said.
The Gukurahundi Genocide outreach program seeks to address long standing issues storming from the post-independence genocide that occurred in Matabeleland and part of Midlands during the 1980’s widely known as Gukurahundi Genocide.
The campaign aims to foster dialogue, promote healing and pave the way to the national reconciliation.
However, the Gukurahundi Genocide survivors have criticized the process saying it lacks the fundamental legal frameworks and international standards of national healing and reconciliation.
A lawyer, Sindiao Mazibisa has described the Gukurahundi Genocide outreach program as masese.
”This is a masese set up as the perpetrator is setting the agenda that is not legally backed with no legal framework to set the tone and agenda.”said Mazibisa.
A Villager under Chief Masuku in Matopo . Nkululeko Mlotshwa in an interview disclosed that in his Ward they are scheduled to have an awareness meeting on the 16th of June.
“Chief Masuku has called on for a meeting on the 16th. I will attend the meeting but not whole heartedly because the perpetrator is still in power and he is yet to acknowledge that he participated fully in butchering innocent souls under a political and military planned agenda,” said Mlotshwa.
Ibhetshu LikaZulu secretary general. Mbuso Fuzwayo in an interview said if a Chief calls for a meeting, his subjects will attend but fear to express their views.
“We all know the traditional command that our Chiefs have though constitutionally they are not empowered to preside over murder and genocide in Zimbabwe.”
He added that the Speaker of Parliament, Jacob Mudenda was clear on the outcome of the outreach that its publication will depend on President Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa who is the Chief Perpetrator on Gukurahundi Genocide in the Government of Zimbabwe when he was the Minister of State at the time when the genocide was committed in the 1980’s.
In an interview with the Sunday Mail last month, Attorney-General, Virginia Mabiza who also heads the Secretariat of the Peace Building Outreach program said that the awareness campaigns in Matabeleland North and South excluding Midlands are designed to educate communities about the objectives of the outreach program.
Gukurahundi Genocide Survivors have critiqued the involvement of the lead perpetrator in the program and Traditional Leaders who are not constitutionally mandated to preside over murder and genocide cases such as Gukurahundi Genocide.