Healing the Wounds of Gukurahundi in Zimbabwe: A Participatory Action Research Project

Description

This book is based on a participatory action research project carried out with a group of former Zimbabwe People's revolutionary Army (ZPRA) which was the armed wing of the Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU) which was led by the late Joshua Nkomo. ZPRA was the primary target of Gukurahundi, a pogrom by the Mugabe government which left an estimated 20 000 civilians dead and countless others tortured in the early 1980s in Matebeleland, Zimbabwe. It has been almost 30 years since the violence ended, but there has never been an official healing and reconciliation programme or truth commission into the atrocities. The government chose the path of amnesia by granting a blanket amnesty to all involved. The regime has enforced a culture of silence over the event through repression and intimidation. The book is a culmination of a two year journey, by the group and the author, of an exploration of group-based self-healing approaches to the pain caused by the violence of Gukurahundi. Front Matter ....Pages i-xxii Healing the Wounds of Gukurahundi (Dumisani Ngwenya)....Pages 1-14 Background and History of Violence in Matebeleland (Dumisani Ngwenya)....Pages 15-34 Armed Conflict, Trauma and Peacebuilding (Dumisani Ngwenya)....Pages 35-61 Community Trauma Healing—Theory and Practice (Dumisani Ngwenya)....Pages 63-94 Participatory Action Research (Dumisani Ngwenya)....Pages 95-116 Research Design, Methodology and Data Collection Methods (Dumisani Ngwenya)....Pages 117-140 Evaluating the Participatory Action Research Process (Dumisani Ngwenya)....Pages 141-164 Findings and Discussion (Dumisani Ngwenya)....Pages 165-198 Contentious Issues (Dumisani Ngwenya)....Pages 199-210 Summary, Conclusions and Reflections (Dumisani Ngwenya)....Pages 211-218 Back Matter ....Pages 219-266