Massacre of 1980s: President joins talks about exhuming victims

Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa has held talks with civil society leaders about exhuming the victims of a notorious massacre by government troops which claimed some 20,000 lives in the 1980s, AFP reported.

Known as the Gukurahundi massacre, the mass murder is believed to have claimed some 20,000 lives over several years, according to the Zimbabwe Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace, a death toll supported by Amnesty International.

According to AFP, Mnangagwa met with civil society leaders from Matabeleland in Zimbabwe’s second largest city Bulawayo about exhuming the victims for reburial.

Human rights activist Jenni Williams said that for the talks to be meaningful, the government would have to first acknowledge its role in the massacre.

According to AFP, she said that it was state soldiers on a government salary “who came here and killed people…”

The talks came just weeks after retired general Perrance Shiri, who commanded the army unit accused of the killings, died from coronavirus.

After his death, Mnangagwa paid tribute to Shiri as a “true patriot.“