Strengthening Village Community–Chief Solidarity, for Reparative Justice and National Healing: Leveraging Grassroots Gukurahundi Hearings to Mobilize Collective Accountability and Cultural Restoration

Summary:

This project, implemented by Ukuthula Trust and CITE in Matabeleland, Zimbabwe, and supported by Nunca Mas has started in January 2026 and will run until the end of 2028. This project intends to empower historically marginalized voices, specifically through Gukurahundi. This will be done through inclusive village hearings and citizen journalism. It will create an equal partnership between traditional leaders and communities so that the organization of the hearings and the storytelling is truly participatory. This time around, CITE (The Center of Information and Technology) has joined as a project partner, they are a communication and journalism-based organization which is dedicated to speaking for those whose voices are not always heard. Check them out here.

The new project follows on the work which has previously been done by Ukuthula trust, by creating a deeper advocacy movement based on the successful hearings which took place in our previous project. Here CITE is especially valuable as an additional partner as they will support local youth and women to improve their ability in storytelling and advocacy through online platforms.

Historical context:

In the first years of independence in Zimbabwe during the 1980s, the western provinces in the nation, home to the minority Ndebele ethnic group, experienced massacres, rape, beatings, and property losses at the hands of a Zimbabwe national army unit, the 5th Brigade, also known as the ‘Gukurahundi’ Brigade.

These soldiers wreaked havoc in rural villages, killing an estimated 20,000 civilians, beating, and raping indiscriminately. Along with end of the massacres in 1987, ‘Gukurahundi’ came the end of discussing the devastating long-term consequences that the brigade had caused on citizens. Nevertheless, the directly affected generation continues to live with fear, as well as the legacies of body and heart aches, and the poverty caused by reduced mobility, apathy, and depression.

There have been complicated cultural impacts because of mass and single graves of people buried in ‘wrong’ places, without traditional rituals: the ‘angry dead’ are for many families an apparently inseparable problem.

Our approach:

The cooperation between Nunca Mas, its members, and Ukuthula trust has been running for a long time, therefore this programme is undertaken with a lot of mutual trust. Nunca mas has been able to contribute with deep expertise in psycho-social work and survivor-centred justice, and will continue doing so. 

The project is a ‘small programme’ funded by CISU, it is the first time Nunca Mas is working with such a modality, this is therefore an exciting opportunity for us! x

Gukurahundi hearings:

In addition, there are currently hearings going on the Gukuhrahundi Massacres that happened 40 years ago in Matabeleland. Although the credibility of these is still contested, it also shows the results of many years of hard work from Ukuthula Trust and other civil society organisations, you can find the article from CITE on these hearings here.

This it is a big step forward as the regime acknowledges the atrocities that took place and negatively affected so many people, including the next generations. Up until today, about 25.000 testimonies have taken place! This is even more than in South Africa under the Truth and Reconcilliation Commission. Still, a large part of the population has not had the opportunity to testify.