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In an address at the memorial, President Mugabe acknowledged that atrocities had been committed in western Matabeleland in the 1980s during which thousands of civilians were killed during operations by a special army unit, the North Korean-trained 5th Brigade.
He described the killings as “an act of madness which should never happen again”. Nkomo died on July 1 last year and was buried at the National Heroes’ Acre in Harare.
“Comrade Mugabe said both ZANU-PF and Dr Nkomo’s then ZAPU were to blame for the killings that took place when he sent counter-insurgency troops to the region,” the official daily, ‘The Herald’ said on Monday.
He said the troops sent to quell disturbances at the time had gone “beyond limits” by killing innocent civilians: “We had had a quarrel, a difference, and engaged ourselves in what I should now call a reckless, unprincipled fight within ourselves. It was an act of madness. We killed each other, we destroyed each other’s property,” he said.
This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions
