| Description: | When this women’s group meet one morning each week in their rural centre in Matabeleland, their needles pierce the fabric, their scissors shape the material and they remember, they reconstruct and they denounce the massacres of the Gukurahundi era (1983-1987). “Gukurahundi” originates from the Shona language and loosely translates as "the early rain which washes away the chaff before the spring rains”. It is estimated that 20,000 Matabele people lost their lives in these massacres perpetrated by the Zimbabwe National Army fifth brigade, trained by North Korean advisers. Genocide Watch (2005), (Accessed on 19/11/19).
In this piece, we are confronted with the Ndebele-speakers who, in 1984, were beaten, killed and thrown down mine-shafts near Bhalagwe Camp, the notorious detention centre in Matabeleland South, the base for the fifth brigade. We see detainees making the grim journey on a convoy of army trucks along a tarred road, before turning onto a dirt road to Bhalagwe Camp; a road, a journey which ends with a brutal beating for all and death for many. We witness a soldier in the act of throwing a body down the mine where several others have already met their end.
Through this arpillera “We are trying to let the world know that in Matabeleland, Zimbabwe, there are still thousands of disappeared people from the 1980s, in need of being found and given a voice”, explains Shari Eppel, facilitator with this group of women “who have been actively documenting local history in the form of textile art pieces, since 2013”.
In 1999, former president Robert Mugabe ambivalently described the Gukurahundi period as a “moment of madness”, his only veiled reference to admitting official responsibility. Zimbabwe Independent (April 18th, 2019), (Accessed on 19/11/19).
Through the National Peace and Reconciliation Commission (NPRC) established in 2018, survivors and their families have finally been given a voice and a space to give their testimonies, to speak their truth, to bear witness and to seek justice for the atrocities of this violent era. Video: Zimbabwe faces up to its painful past (FRANCE 24, 17 minutes). |
