Zimbabwean Journalist Hopewell Chin 'ono says British Gvt was Complicit in the Genocide in Zimbabwe

Gukurahundi and Gaza: The British Legacy of 'Wilful Blindness'

" You sided with Mugabe and even knighted him when it suited you"

By Harry Taruva for Kwedu News

Sydney, Australia - The recent conflict in Gaza has brought renewed scrutiny to the foreign policy of Western nations, particularly the United Kingdom (UK), with critics highlighting what they see as a history of selective outrage and "wilful blindness" on matters of human rights.

This debate has drawn parallels to a dark chapter in Zimbabwean history; the Gukurahundi massacres of the 1980s, an atrocity that left an estimated 10,000 to 20,000 Ndebele people dead.

Award-winning Zimbabwean journalist and human rights activist, Hopewell Chin'ono, argues that the British government's response to the Gukurahundi genocide mirrors its current stance on Gaza, suggesting a pattern of prioritizing political and economic interests over human rights.

"The British only acknowledged the Ndebele genocide known as Gukurahundi later; but they do not say it loudly because they were complicit," Chin'ono stated in one of his social media posts.

He contends that the UK chose to "keep quiet" while former Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe, and current President Emmerson Mnangagwa, "butchered the Ndebele people," even going so far as to knight Mugabe after the massacres.

A Legacy of "Wilful Blindness"

This accusation of complicity is supported by historical research. A 2017 investigation by The Guardian publication, based on documents obtained by Dr. Hazel Cameron, a lecturer at the University of St Andrews, revealed that British officials were "intimately aware" of the atrocities but consistently "minimised their scale."

Cameron describes this policy as one of "wilful blindness."

The documents, which include cables exchanged by the then British High Commissioner in Harare, Robin Byatt, show a clear motivation to safeguarding British interests in a newly independent Zimbabwe.

The article, penned by The Guardian Africa Correspondent, Jason Burke, reveals that a cable from June 24, 1983, Byatt explained that "Zimbabwe is important to us primarily because of major British and western economic and strategic interests in southern Africa, and Zimbabwe’s pivotal position there."

The UK's policy was to maintain a relationship with Mugabe's government, opting for "sympathetic and constructive, rather than simply critical, advice."

The position was in contrast to that of some journalists and their American counterparts.

When the BBC's Jeremy Paxman and The Observer's Donald Trelford attempted to report on the violence, British officials dismissed their accounts as "unreservedly gloomy and sensational."

The British government also failed to mention the atrocities in parliamentary reports after ministerial visits to Zimbabwe.

Even Prince Charles was told by the Foreign Office that "those massacres in Matabeleland [were] all exaggerated."

A Tale of Two Tragedies
Chin'ono draws a direct comparison between the UK's historical silence on Gukurahundi and its current refusal to acknowledge a genocide in Gaza by Israel with the backing of the United States of America, a strong British ally.

"When it comes to countries like Zimbabwe, where a genocide was committed… the British government acknowledges that genocide occurred," he observes. "But where the death toll in Gaza is more than triple the Zimbabwean tragedy, the British government insists that it is not genocide," he said.

Recent statistics on the conflict in Gaza illustrate the scale of the human tragedy to be approximately over 64,000 Palestinian deaths, with a significant number being women and children.

The number is more than triple the estimated Gukurahundi death toll in Zimbabwe.

Beyond the sheer numbers, the conflict has been unprecedentedly dangerous for journalists.

An analysis by the International Federation of Journalists indicates that since October 7, 2023, over 235 journalists and media workers have been killed in Gaza.

This rate of casualties for journalists is dramatically higher than in any other modern conflict, leading critics like Chin'ono to argue that it is a "systematic attempt to silence witnesses."

The Price of Realpolitik

The core of this critique is that Western governments, including the UK, operate on a principle of "realpolitik" - a system of politics based on practical rather than moral or ideological considerations.

"No such thing exists with these Western pretenders," Chin'ono writes, adding that "They lecture others while standing knee-deep in their own contradictions."

The UK's historical actions in Zimbabwe, according to this view, were not a failure of intelligence but a deliberate choice to protect its own interests, even at the cost of human lives.

The perspective suggests that the UK's current policy on Gaza is not an aberration but a continuation of a long-standing tradition of a "shameless government of spineless Keir Starmer," as Chin'ono describes it.

A tradition seen to be supporting a policy that serves British interests, regardless of the humanitarian cost.

Chin'ono's analysis also reveal that the UK's loud condemnation of some atrocities and its muted response to others is not a sign of inconsistency, but rather a consistent and self-serving strategy.