gukurahundi massacre

In January 1983, a crackdown by the elite Fifth Brigade in Matabeleland North was initiated to purge the dissidents, and its participation lasted until late 1984. The brigade's directives apparently specified a search for local ZAPU officials and veterans of ZAPU's armed wing, the Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA). Seizure or detention by the Fifth Brigade was arbitrary. In Bulawayo, for instance, Ndebele men of fighting age were considered potential dissidents and therefore, guilty of subversive activities. Most detained were summarily executed or marched to re-education camps. 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. On occasion the Fifth Brigade also massacred large groups of Ndebele, seemingly at random—the largest such incident occurred in March 1983, when 62 young men and women were shot on the banks of the Cewale River, Lupane. Seven survived with gunshot wounds, the other 55 died. Another way 5 Brigade used to kill 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, 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. The Zimbabwe government repudiated these allegations and accused the hostile foreign press of fabricating stories. Zimbabwean Minister for National Security Sydney Sekeramayi countered that allegations of atrocities were part of a ZAPU disinformation programme to discredit the army.The government characterised such allegations as irresponsible, contrived propaganda because it failed to give proper weight to the violence by dissidents, who targeted ZANU officials. It is estimated that 700–800 people were murdered by dissident gangs in rural regions. In August 1985, dissidents massacred 22 Shona civilians in Mwenezi. On a mission farm in Matobo, dissidents massacred 16 people.  Death estimates The Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace in Zimbabwe documented at least 2,000 deaths, and speculated that the actual number could be 8,000 or higher. Local Ndebele put the figure between 20,000 and 40,000. Journalist Heidi Holland referred to a death toll of 8,000 as a typical conservative estimate. In February 1983 the International Red Cross disclosed that 1,200 Ndebele had been murdered that month alone. In a unanimously adopted resolution in 2005, the International Association of Genocide Scholars estimated the death toll at 20,000.