OWN CORRESPONDENT, Bulawayo | Monday 10.50am
ZIMBABWEAN President Robert Mugabe said on Sunday he is ready to compensate victims of political violence that took place in the early 1980s, the state news agency Ziana reported.
Mugabe was speaking at a church service in Bulawayo, capital of the western Matabeleland province which was hardest hit in a brutal crackdown by government troops on a small group of rebels.
“I do not see how we cannot find remedies for those who got hurt. They are our people after all,” said Mugabe.
“It was painful to our people and saw lots of deaths,” said Mugabe, who for years has maintained a stony silence on the subject.
The conflict began in the early period after independence in 1980 when Mugabe sacked the late vice-president Joshua Nkomo, then leader of the rival Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU), from his coalition government.
A small number of guerrillas became active in Nkomo’s home province of Matabeleland and the government sent the troops of the North Korean-trained Fifth Brigade to crush them.
The violence took place in both Matabeleland and Midlands provinces.
Two rights groups, Zimbabwe’s Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace (CCJP) and the Legal Resources Foundation, compiled a report on the strife and submitted it to Mugabe more than two years ago.
It contained harrowing accounts of atrocities, including incidents in which government troops forced villagers to dig their own graves, pregnant women were bayonetted and families were made to dance on the tombs of their dead.
The 260-page report, entitled “Breaking the Silence”, received no formal response from Mugabe, and on Sunday was dismissive of those behind it, former CCJP director Mike Auret and human rights lawyer David Coltart.
The victims can be identified, said Mugabe. But he added: “We do not have to use the Aurets and the Coltarts who are using the situation to further their own divisive agenda.”