The latest rumour circulating is of Shiri and suicide …

Well, the talk doing the rounds now is that Perence Shiri has shot himself in an attempted suicide.

I don’t know if it’s true, and nor do I know if he died as a result (if it was true). But it’s certainly an indicator, to me anyway, of where people’s minds are turning to now. And that is to a sense that people are going to be held accountable for crimes in the past.

Perence Shiri was the man in charge of 5 Brigade during the Gukurahundi. Tens of thousands were murdered during that time - civilians of all ages and sexes. It was vicious and brutal and cruel. The following is from Wikipedia:

The first Commander of Fifth Brigade was Colonel Perence Shiri. Fifth Brigade was different from all other army units in that it was directly subordinated to the Prime Minister office, and not integrated to the normal army command structures. Their codes, uniforms, radios and equipment were not compatible with other army units. Their most distinguishing feature in the field was their red berets, although many reports note that on occasions Fifth Brigade soldiers would operate in civilian clothes. Fifth Brigade seemed to be a law unto themselves once in the field. Most of their operations were targeted at defenceless civilians, who Mugabe referred to as supporters of dissidents. In April 1983 Mugabe said, “We eradicate them. We don’t differentiate when we fight because we can’t tell who is a dissident and who is not.”

Within weeks, the Fifth Brigade had murdered more than two thousand civilians, beaten thousands more, and destroyed hundreds of homesteads. Their impact on the communities they passed through was shocking.

1983

Most of the dead were shot in public executions, often after being forced to dig their own graves in front of family and fellow villagers. The largest number of dead in a single killing involved the deliberate shooting of 62 young men and women on the banks of the Cewale River, Lupane, on 5 March 1983. Seven survived with gunshot wounds, the other 55 died. Another way 5 Brigade killed large groups of people was to burn them alive in huts. They did this in Tsholotsho and also in Lupane. They would routinely round up dozens, or even hundreds, of civilians and march them at gun point to a central place, like a school or bore-hole. There they would be forced to sing Shona songs praising ZANU-PF, at the same time being beaten with sticks. These gatherings usually ended with public executions. Those killed could be ex-ZIPRAs, ZAPU officials, or anybody chosen at random.When Prime Minister Robert Mugabe was directly asked the question if he knew what was going on in Matebeleland by British Investigative Journalist, Jeremy Paxman of ‘Panorama’ Programme fame. He vehemently denied it, and called it antique western sabotage tactics.

A far better resource for this period in our history is this book. Buy it and read it.

I don’t know if the rumour of Shiri’s suicide is true or not, but I can imagine that these times of waiting for results - so frustrating for activists - must be a scary time of reflection for many people like him.

The rumours that negotiations are going on may reasure some people in the country - the top echelon, Mugabe included, would surely be involved?

But how far down does it extend? Are people like Shiri protected from their past crimes? And if not, what options do they have available to them? Suicide, appears to be the one option doing the cell phone rounds at the moment.

I’m not sure I believe we will see a spate of suicides when change comes, but I do fully expect to see a flash of grey, long skinny tails and round ears, as a bunch of rats stumble over each other in their haste to jump ship.

Who knows, maybe all those airlines that stopped flying into Zimbabwe when our tourism collapsed will come back and make their first bit of profit from selling tickets to rats running as fast as they can?

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This entry was written by Hope on Thursday, April 3rd, 2008 at 12:13 am. You can follow any comments on this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.