unsaveSave
expand-left
full screenZimbabwe President Emmerson Mnangagwa. Stock photography Photo: Anton Vaganov/AP/TT
A reconciliation process has been launched by Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa regarding the massacres carried out by government forces in the 1980s.
Survivors will be allowed to testify in a series of public hearings led by 72 local leaders that could ultimately compensate victims in an effort to calm tensions in the country.
– Today is the day when we show that our country is capable of solving our conflicts as Zimbabweans, regardless of their complexity or extent, Mnangagwa said in the country’s second largest city, Bulawayo.
The so-called Gukurahundi massacre took place over 40 years ago under the country’s first president Robert Mugabe and only a few years after the state of Zimbabwe was formed.
Mugabe used soldiers trained in North Korea to crack down on the opposition, mainly from the minority Ndebele people in southwestern Zimbabwe. According to human rights organizations, up to 20,000 people are estimated to have been killed.