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Paper short abstract:

It is forty years since the ‘Gukurahundi’ post-independence massacres in the western provinces of Zimbabwe. The state’s version of 'killing dissidents' is at odds with that of victims. Expert exhumations of the murdered dead vindicate that innocents died, and reburials have helped healed the dead.

Paper long abstract:

In Matabeleland and the Midlands of Zimbabwe, the post-independence era of the 1980s did not bring the peace and development experienced elsewhere, and instead brought years of oppression and killings, as the ruling party sought to establish a one-party state. While there were indisputably dissidents causing disruption in this region, they were few in number and reach, and the vast majority of terrible violations occurred at the hands of the notorious, North Korean trained Fifth Brigade. In recent years, differently-situated actors are increasingly shifting memories of this past out of the realms of silence and oppression and into the context of the political present. The dead themselves have been given an indisputable voice and are acting to challenge the official versions of this past, when exhumed by forensic specialists in the presence of a witnessing community. Beyond vindication of the memories of the tortured and bereaved, bringing bones out of the grave and into the light of day and reburying them where the family needs them to be, also brings some healing and allows for new, emboldened dialogue about the past. The exhumation of one grave of a young married couple not only brought new truths and reparation to a family, but reached throughout the broader community to offer clarity and relief to hundreds across the generations who had been forced to live for decades in the proximity of these restless dead.