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Temba Dube Deputy News Editor
INFORMATION Minister Professor Jonathan Moyo yesterday refused to back Vice President Phelekezela Mphoko’s claim that Gukurahundi was a “western conspiracy”.

VP Mphoko used a weekend interview with our sister paper, The Sunday Mail, to claim that the 1980s disturbances in Matabeleland and Midlands were part of a wider conspiracy formulated within the context of Cold War politics that sought to discredit black nationalists pursuing communist ideologies.

“People can say what they want,” the Vice President, appointed last December, said in a lengthy interview, “but that was a western conspiracy. You can never hear the British condemning that, never! They can’t say anything, they never said anything.

“They never condemned anything because it was their baby.” Prof Moyo, responding to questions during a five-hour question and answer session on Twitter and Facebook yesterday, pointedly refused to associate himself with the VP’s comments which have triggered widespread condemnation.

On Twitter, @zenzele asked the minister: “Do you agree with VP Mphoko that Gukurahundi was a western conspiracy?”
Prof Moyo replied: “As President Mugabe has said, Gukurahundi was a ‘moment of madness’ and that is the bottom line. There’s no need for confusion on this.”

After the two-hour Twitter engagement, held under the hash tag #AskProfJNMoyo, the minister spent three hours taking and answering questions on Facebook, during which he was again asked about VP Mphoko’s comments.
Petros J. Dube asked him: “Prof, what’s your take on Mphoko’s remarks concerning Gukurahundi?”

Prof Moyo, who says in his CV that his father was killed by soldiers during the disturbances, appeared to accuse VP Mphoko of “revisionism”.

He said the question of the causes of Gukurahundi had been “addressed authoritatively” by President Mugabe and the late former Vice President Joshua Nkomo, who ended the killings by signing a Unity Accord in 1987.

“I’m still to come to terms with those remarks (by Mphoko) in terms of their intended meaning and purpose,” he said.

“Meanwhile, I know that most people agree that the late VP Nkomo and President Mugabe addressed the Gukurahundi issue in very fundamental terms with rich lessons for all of us. There is no need to be revisionistic about this. I don’t think there’s a problem in the country about unraveling the causes of that dark period in our country’s early independence period.”

The question of its causes, he said, “had been addressed authoritatively, especially in the run-up to the historic Unity Accord. What has remained with lingering questions are not the Gukurahundi causes but the Gukurahundi consequences.”

An especially trained army unit, the 5 Brigade, was deployed in Matabeleland and the Midlands shortly after independence to quell what government officials said was an insurrection by dissidents loyal to VP Nkomo’s PF-Zapu, which had lost the first democratic elections to President Mugabe’s ZANU.

The military operation veered off its mission and scores of innocent citizens were killed.

President Mugabe reviewed official government enquiry into the operation and told of his regret, describing it as a “moment of madness”.

Vice President Mphoko, at his appointment, was tasked by President Mugabe to head the Organ on National Healing part of whose task would be to find ways of dealing with what Prof Moyo describes as “the consequences of Gukurahundi” without opening old wounds.

Meanwhile, Prof Moyo’s historic Twitter and Facebook chat — the first by a Zimbabwean Cabinet minister — set him up for some most awkward questions.

On Twitter, @ehudnyambayo tackled the minister, describing him as a “political turncoat” after turning from a critic of Zanu-PF to one of its most fervent defenders. “What are you really?” @ehudnyambayo demanded to know.

Prof Moyo, in his typical caustic style, shot back: “Only donkeys are consistent. Which politician do you know anywhere in the world who does not fit your definition of turncoat?”

He patiently, and with a great dose of wit, answered some bizarre question, including an enquiry from one @theadamhasan who wanted to know if Zimbabwe had aspirations of space exploration and colonising the moon.

“Yes we do as part of the AU’s Agenda 2063 vision which includes space exploration but excludes colonising the moon,” the minister replied.

He took no prisoners when @tipah asked if First Lady Cde Grace Mugabe was now in charge during Politburo meetings.

“Do you really know what you are talking about?” asked the professor.