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Written by: John Burke

Published: 06 December 2024

Last Updated: 11 June 2026

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• Genocide

Gukurahundi Genocide: Tragic Subject - Petition to the Prime Minister!

On Thursday 5th December 2024 we revisited the topic of the Gukurahundi Genocide, having previously done so on Thursday 19 July 2018 {CLICK FOR THE 2018 Petition} to the then Prime Minister Theresa May {CLICK FOR ARTICLE}- again in partnership with ZAPU members - who were the main "targets" of this heinous campaign. Ostensibly started in 1982 with the dismissal of Joshua Nkomo - from the fledgling Zimbabwe Government, upon the order of Robert Mugabe.

This time around, we congregated outside the newly "secured" Zimbabwe Embassy - they have got some grim looking metal security gated fabrications at the side and front entrances - to make the Embassy even less friendly or appealing to the Zimbabwean Diaspora - security concerns or Guilt? - we have to ask why these new gates - {photo on Flickr - click to see for yourself SIDE DOOR - 429 CORNER DOOR }.

True to form the guilty inside locked their doors - simply as we were there. Indeed they sent out a CIO to sit in his new BMW X6 to "observe us" - so we took their photos too - again on our Flickr Album of the day. {CLICK HERE TO SEE THE DAYS PHOTO ALBUM} Please note that due to technical constraints, the videos recorded today will take some considerable time to be 'compressed' in order to be displayed upon our Flickr Platform - so expect videos to be appearing by the weekend please.

We took some more photos with our "Zanu PF Must Go" banner and by 13:30 we sidled off towards Trafalgar Square and onto Whitehall. by 13:45 we were arranged opposite Downing Street - under the gaze of "Monty" at his commemorative statue. By the time we have said our hellos to the new supporters opposite Downing Street it was time to present our band of 6 petitioners to the Diplomatic Police Unit in control of Downing Street. Ronald T Mutumbi, was due to be the Organiser of the 6 of us today - but had unexpected problems with travel on the day - such a pity.

So we 6 lined up at the solid security gates {making the Zimbabwean Embassy gates looking a little flimsy!} at the entrance to Downing Street. Our Police Diplomatic Unit Escort - was a friendly as any tourist guide - calling us in by our first names! As some may know within those gates we have to go through Air Port Quality X-Ray machines to check all our bags, mobile phones or any metal objects.

Read more: Gukurahundi Genocide Petition Delivered

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Written by: Richard Gandari, John Burke and BBC Africa

Published: 27 November 2024

Last Updated: 11 June 2026

Hits: 678

• Genocide
• Gukurahundi
• Justice Needed

5th December 2024 at 14:00 to the Office of the UK Prime Minister, 

Also by e-mail and post to The FCDO and the Commonwealth Secretariate in London.

Some may know this as the Gukurahundi Genocide - but the Shona word of 'Gukurahundi' cannot ever convey the horrors and 'pure psychotic outrage' conducted sometime from 1983 (approx.) to 1987 when - due to this violent and heartless pressure the leader of ZAPU at that time Dr Joshua Nkomo, reluctantly agreed to subsume ZAPU into the newly created ZANU PF - laughingly termed the "UNITY ACCORD".

A lesson in violence and deceit that still haunts Zimbabwe to this day - as well as being an ongoing strategy of the Zanu PF regime ever since - and now continued by the complicit (in the genocide} E D Mnangagwa.

But returning to the word "GUKURAHUNDI" - the literal meaning, which loosely translates to "the early rain which washes away the chaff before the spring rains". However this can never represent the inhuman genocide which took place - instigated by Mugabe to enforce a one-party State.

The Beginnings

Identifying as a member or supporter of ZAPU became a death wish.

Under the then Prime Minister, Robert Mugabe, a caveat was promulgated, outlawing ZAPU and forfeiting all its properties to the State. Some of the properties belonged to ZPRA, the armed wing of ZAPU during the liberation struggle. Everything was seized and forfeited to the state. Dr Joshua Nkomo was persecuted and hounded into exile. His lieutenants, the late Dr Dumiso Dabengwa and the late Commander Lookout Masuku were thrown into Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison on trumped up charges. 

Just like in East Germany in 1990, it has been four decades of denial and deafening silence.

The Evidence Slowly Emerging {Still}

But now, the new light is being shed on these days of horror. Thousands of historical documents that appear to expose the perpetrators are now becoming available in a raft of foreign archival collections. The documents are wide-ranging and include, among others, diplomatic correspondence, intelligence assessments and raw intelligence garnered by spies recruited from within the Zimbabwean government. These papers—augmented by the testimony of Zimbabwean witnesses finding courage in old age—appear to substantiate what survivors and scholars have always suspected but never been able to validate: Mugabe, then Prime Minister, was the prime architect of mass killings that were well-planned and systematically executed.

Read more: Genocide Petition

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Written by: Chief (Inkosi) Felix Nhlanhla Ndiweni, John Burke and Moses MBANO

Published: 14 November 2024

Last Updated: 14 November 2024

Hits: 1053

• Free Fair and Regular
• Consent to be governed

If consent of the governed is the most fundamental concept of democracy, its most essential right is that of citizens to choose their leaders in free, fair, and regular elections. Other rights are necessary to democracy; elections by themselves are insufficient.

Yet the right to freely elect one's representatives and to influence the political direction of one's government is democracy's indispensable political foundation.

Without free elections, there is neither the possibility for citizens to express their will nor the opportunity for citizens to change their leaders, approve policies for the country, address wrongs, or protest the limitation of their rights. Elections establish the citizenry's and the individual's political rights. They are the ongoing representation of the consent of the governed (see previous section).

Around the world, millions of people have braved violence, intimidation, and other obstacles to demand the right to express their will through the ballot box. Often, students and youth have played leading roles in this worldwide epic, such as the Otpor movement in Serbia, which helped to overthrow the dictator Slobodan Milosevic in 2000, or the Iranian Green Revolution, which protested the stealing of elections in 2009. In the United States, young people played a pivotal role in the civil rights movement, including thousands of students who challenged segregation throughout the South or volunteered to register black citizens to vote.

Representative and Electoral Systems

The majority of democracies have chosen to establish parliamentary systems, in which elections for the legislature also determine the party in control of the executive branch. This means that the party (or coalition) with a majority of seats in parliament forms the government. (Although there are occasions of minority coalitions forming governments, they typically have majority support in parliament.) In a presidential system, such as in the United States, or in a mixed presidential-parliamentary system, such as in France and Poland, there are separate elections for the head of the executive branch and the legislature. Although parliamentary systems may reflect more directly the citizens' will, presidential or mixed systems may provide greater checks and balances on the exercise of power (see also Constitutional Limits).

Read more: Democracy and Voting

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Written by: Henry Makambe and John Burke

Published: 30 October 2024

Last Updated: 14 November 2024

Hits: 1062

• Injustice
• Zanu PF Chaos
• Petition Update

The Dual petition handover was a 'first' as organised by ZHRO and CCC Manchester, that injustice is happening in Zimbabwe across many aspects of everyday life - from delivering children to political freedoms - or lack thereof.

Dickson, Tendai, Model, Simbarasche, Greatman and Kelvin {see photo} delivered the 24 page written petition to the Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer at 13:30 Thursday 24th October 2024 {and an additional copy was e-mailed to Robert Ison on the Zimbabwe Desk round the corner at the FCDO}

The hand over of these two petitions is sending a strong message that things are problematic for the citizens in Zimbabwe {non Zanu PF citizens - as those get their medacl attention overseas - and they control all the legal aspects}.

The women's group later in the day {at 14:30} handed over a petition looking at the terrible situation with maternal mortality and childhood related fatalities. These were Melody, Josephine, Jane, Diana and helped by their Organiser Ronald {see the days write up below}.

Three of the lady petitioners have already provided feedback on how they felt the day within the gates of Downing Street had meant to them, more will follow.

Phillis Melody {CLICK HERE to read her reaction}
Josephine {CLICK HERE to read this report}
Jane Mundangepfupfu's reaction is within the body of the write up of the 24th October 2024, as is further writing from Josephine Jenje-Mudimbu.

That full report can be found at this link {CLICK HERE} from the petitions I should like to quote the following extracts and facts from the full written petition regarding the Constitutional and other Injustices within Zimbabwe -

Read more: Demonstrators View 24th Oct 2024