Atrocity, Memory, and History: the bewilderment of violence in Yvonne Vera’s The Stone Virgins

In the years immediately following the independence of Zimbabwe in 1980, clashes occurred between the remnants of the 2 former guerilla armies, of Robert Mugabe‟s Zimbabwe African National Union [ZANU}, and that of the Zimbabwe African People‟s Union [ZAPU] of Joshua Nkomo. As in so many analogous situations, this rivalry broke largely on tribal lines, majority Shona [ZANU] vs. minority Ndbele [ZAPU]. Mugabe and ZANU won the first national elections, and soon after declared a “state of emergency ” to deal with the “rebels, ” or “dissidents, ” those presumably already resisting his rule. The commitment on the part of Mugabe and his government to deal with this “unrest, ” or “insurrection ” resulted in the formation and unleashing of a special military unit- answerable only to Mugabe personally- against the remaining guerillas and their supposed civilian supporters, primarily in Matabeleland, southwest Zimbabwe, the region of the Ndebele peoples. The military unit was named the “5th Brigade, ” their mission labeled “Operation Gukurahundi ” – “the rain that washes away the chaff before the spring rains.” Among the results were a series of atrocities and massacres in which at least 5000-7000 civilians were killed, many others assaulted, raped, and tortured. 1 Despite significant efforts to bring these crimes out into the open, virtually nothing has been done; two government commissions of inquiry themselves have refused to release any findings, even though independent verification exists