[Civsoc-mw] Mnangagwa and Gukurahundi

[Diana Cammack]

Subject:	Mnangagwa and Gukurahundi 



Op-Ed: Mnangagwa and the Gukurahundi - fact and fiction | Daily Maverick


Mnangagwa and the Gukurahundi - fact and fiction Stuart Doran Daily
Maverick,27 November 2017

As journalists and a veritable army of newfound Zimbabwe "experts" join the
bun rush to describe the history of Robert Mugabe´s replacement, Emmerson
Mnangagwa, there has been much talk about his role in the Gukurahundi
killings of the 1980s. Some have said his part in the massacres is "shrouded
in mystery", others that he was the "architect" or "mastermind". Still
others seem to have bought Mnangagwa´s line that his participation is a myth
- or that it has, at least, been wildly exaggerated. All of them are wrong.
By STUART DORAN.

In January 1983, when the North Korean-trained Fifth Brigade (5 Brigade) of
the army was deployed in Matabeleland North, Mnangagwa was Mugabe´s minister
of state security. That portfolio brought with it control over the Central
Intelligence Organisation (CIO), a Rhodesian institution that was partly
reconfigured in 1980 when Mugabe took power at independence.


Structurally, the main changes to the CIO had been the formal incorporation
of the domestic security and intelligence function - previously informally
controlled by the organisation through the Special Branch of the Rhodesian
police - and the drafting of personnel from Zanu´s department of security
into the organisation.

Culturally, the well-earned reputation for brutality of Zanu´s security
apparatus - which had been superintended by Mnangagwa during the party´s
exile in Mozambique - melded with the Special Branch affinity for torture
that had become a stock-in-trade as the war against the nationalists had
intensified in the 1970s. These elements magnified one another and,
predictably, Zimbabwe´s CIO soon became known for its extreme interrogation
techniques.

The CIO may have developed an unpleasant name in Zimbabwe, but that proves
nothing in relation to the Gukurahundi, as Mnangagwa has himself suggested.
Rarely given to interviews with journalists, in
2016 he commented on allegations surrounding his involvement in the
massacres in what was clearly a bid to sanitise his image ahead of a tilt at
the presidency. Speaking to the New Statesman, he
retorted: "How do I become the enforcer during Gukurahundi?... We had the
president, the minister of defence, the commander of the army, and I was
none of that. My own enemies attack me left and right and that is what you
are buying."

This seems likely to become his stock defence. In effect, he claims that he
was in charge of internal security, not military matters - and that the CIO
had nothing to do with the Gukurahundi.
It´s a weak defence that has no prospect of surviving closer scrutiny. But
it does contain two grains of truth.

The first is that the CIO was not the lead agency in the killings. The vast
majority of civilian deaths were perpetrated by 5 Brigade. In the main, CIO
officers were engaged in apprehending and interrogating alleged
"dissidents", armed bandits who were operating in Matabeleland and who were,
according to Zanu (PF), coordinating an incipient rebellion against the
government. Moreover, a significant segment of the CIO´s staff was
physically excluded from 5 Brigade´s area of operations. The second grain of
truth in Mnangagwa´s statement is that he (unintentionally) put his finger
on the fact that the orchestration of the Gukurahundi was not overseen by
one man. It was much broader than that. In this sense, the notion that
Mnangagwa was the architect or mastermind of the killings is, indeed, false
and thoroughly ahistorical.Yet that is where the factual basis of
Mnangagwa´s defence ends. On a bureaucratic level, the CIO may not have been
at the forefront of the killings, but it most certainly played a critical
part in the Gukurahundi. It is important to remember that the Gukurahundi
was a lengthy campaign, not a single event. Equally, it involved a number of
different angles and an array of targets that went beyond the civilian
population in Matabeleland. The broad objective of the campaign was
political - to attain a one-party state, which in turn necessitated the
obliteration of the rival nationalist party, Zapu. Many "dissidents"
arrested, tortured and murdered by the CIO were not rebels but were
specifically targeted because they were Zapu office bearers or members of
its former military wing, Zipra. The intention was to demolish Zapu
structures, while 5 Brigade´s indiscriminate violence against civilians was
meant to wipe out Zapu´s grass roots base. CIO officers such as Menard
Muzariri were at the forefront of the more focused violence committed during
the Gukurahundi.The CIO also provided operational intelligence to 5 Brigade
and other arms of government. Zipra personnel files held by the CIO formed
the basis of lists used by 5 Brigade to hunt down ex-Zipras and Zapu
officials in the rural areas. Further, intelligence garnered by CIO
surveillance teams was used by the army to target individuals - the most
prominent example being the attempt to assassinate Zapu leader Joshua Nkomo
in March 1983. Thus, there was significant cooperation across agencies, and
the CIO was an important cog in the wheel. This reality has been obscured by
the entrenched perception that 5 Brigade and the Gukurahundi period are
synonymous; in other words, that the brigade and its activities define the
Gukurahundi in its totality.

And there is another aspect of the Gukurahundi´s choreography that has been
poorly understood.
This relates to the way in which the campaign was managed in practical
terms. Coordination between agencies was handled through ethnic and
political channels that often bypassed formal bureaucratic structures. It
was established relationships between members of Zanu and its former
military wing, Zanla, that provided the pathways along which the Gukurahundi
ran. Within both the CIO and military, groups that did not fit these
parameters - namely, whites and Ndebele speakers - were usually excluded
from Gukurahundi-specific operations. There was, therefore, a coterie inside
different organisations that was working independently from the rest and
conducting what were more or less secret operations.

At senior levels, these organic linkages meant that political leaders and
ex-Zanla army commanders were heavily engaged in cooperative planning and
were often involved in decisions and actions that went beyond the confines
of their formal responsibilities. Hence, Constantine Chiwenga, then
brigadier of an army unit in Bulawayo that was operating separately from 5
Brigade, nevertheless organised logistics for the latter and had regular
informal discussions with 5 Brigade commander Perence Shiri.

Mnangagwa, as Mugabe´s point man on security-related matters - a role that
incorporated strategy, implementation, and a range of portfolios - likewise
frequently met with army commanders, transmitting decisions made by the
political leadership and discussing operational questions. The notion that
he was restricted within the narrow vertical margins of the CIO´s official
intelligence function is sheer falsehood. Along with Mugabe and the minister
responsible for defence, Sydney Sekeramayi, none of the Zanu politicians was
more embroiled in the Gukurahundi than Mnangagwa. He was not the architect,
but he was one of them. Of that there is no doubt.


An illustration of the tight collaboration among the Zanu-ex-Zanla elite has
been provided by Kevin Woods, a white CIO officer based in Matabeleland in
1983. During a security briefing at Chiwenga´s joint operations command
(JOC) in Bulawayo - one attended by Mugabe, Mnangagwa and Shiri - Woods
expressed concern about the "international repercussions" that might result
from the atrocities in Matabeleland North. Amid "great mirth", he was told
by Edson Shirihuru, the CIO´s deputy director of political affairs and a
longtime sidekick of Mnangagwa´s, to "stick to basic intelligence work"
associated with dissident activity and to "stay out of their war".

Woods was exposed as a South African agent in 1988, an incident that
prompted Mugabe to fire Mnangagwa as minister of state security, and his
testimony would probably be vehemently denied by Mnangagwa. But black
officials - members of Zanu who were stationed in Matabeleland during the
period and who attended JOC meetings - paint precisely the same picture, as
do Zanu politicians who were in the mix at the time. This underlines the
problem that will confront Mnangagwa if he attempts to maintain what amounts
to a lame defence. His role is not "shrouded in mystery" for those who were
there - and many pieces of extraneous evidence also exist. Zapu leader
Dumiso Dabengwa has called on him to come clean and "apologise". Chances
that he will do so in a manner that admits personal culpability seem slim -
even though a mere confession falls well short of what is demanded by many
relatives of the dead. But one thing is clear: whether he denies or
stonewalls, this issue will not go away. DM*

 Dr Stuart Doran is a historian and the author of a recently published book
on Zimbabwe´s formative years, Kingdom, power, glory: Mugabe, Zanu and the
quest for supremacy, 1960-1987, which is available in major bookstores and
online at www.sithatha.com