4
Statements by Robert Mugabe
Mugabe warned Joshua Nkomo: “If you try something I will crush you.”
In a speech on his own Shona ethnic territory, Mugabe described Nkomo as “a cobra” whose
head must be crushed along with its body – Nkomo’s PF ZAPU party and its supporters were
based in Matabeleland.
“The situation is one that requires a change on the part of the people of
Matabeleland. They must be reoriented. Nkomo has not accepted political
defeat.” (Source: Film footage from film entitled Never the Same Again.)
When
civilian
is
Nkomo
protested
population,
difficult
for
that
Mugabe
the
army
the
told
to
5th
him
Brigade
that
distinguish
in
who
was
killing
dealing
is
a
and
with
dissident
beating
an
and
up
insurgency,
who
is
the
“it
not.
People should not hide dissidents”.
In a speech to a rural Ndebele audience near Nkayi in April 1983 he spoke of Ndebele support for
the dissidents and went on to say:
“We have to deal with this problem quite ruthlessly. Don’t cry if your relatives get
killed in the process … Where men and women provide food for the dissidents,
when we get there we eradicate them. We don’t differentiate when we fight,
because we can’t tell who is a dissident and who is not.” (Source: The Times 27
April 1983)
On 18 April 1983 he said:
“Obviously it cannot ever be a sane policy to mete out blanket punishment to
innocent people although in areas where banditry and dissident activity are
rampant, civilian sympathy is a common feature and it may not be possible to
distinguish innocent from the guilty.”
When the Catholic Church accused Mugabe and the commander of the army Perrence Shiri of
conducting a reign of terror in Matabeleland that included “wanton killings, woundings, beatings,
burnings and rapes [that had] brought about the maiming and death of hundreds of people who
are neither dissidents nor collaborators”, Mugabe responded by warning a gathering in rural
Matabeleland, “We have to deal with this problem quite ruthlessly. Don’t cry if your relatives get
killed in the process ... Where men and women provide food for the dissidents, when we get
there we eradicate them.”
“The solution is a military one. Their grievances are unfounded. The verdict of
the voters was cast in 1980. They should have accepted defeat then. … The
situation in Matabeleland is one that requires a change. The people must be
reoriented.” (Source: Interview in 1984 with Donald Trelford, the editor of The
Observer (UK) during an interview with the editor.)
Their words condemn them:
The language of violence, intolerance and despotism in Zimbabwe.