Tofa, The Bible and the Quest for Democracy and Democratization in Africaresolved to pull out of ZANU PF and to resuscitate PF-ZAPU. They
organized a meeting at the White City Stadium in Bulawayo where they
criticized ZANU PF of acting in bad faith as far as the Unity Accord is
concerned.
Although the singing of the unity accord witnessed an instant cessation
of dissident activities, it failed to efface the bitter memories of the Mata-
beleland holocaust from the minds not only of the people of Matabele-
land and Midlands provinces but the nation at large. The atrocities were
of iniquitous gravity that the people of Matabeleland are still struggling
to recuperate from them. The Matabeleland massacres became to be
known as “Gukurahundi” (the first heavy rains which washes away the
chaff) because of the indiscriminate killings which were associated by it.
After the atrocities, the government established a commission of inquiry
into the massacres under the chairmanship of Justice Chihambakwe.
Because of the astonishing findings of the commission, the findings
were of the report were not disclosed to the public. The Matabeleland
genocide remains a highly -charged political topic in Zimbabwe and the
Church called for truth telling as a first step towards reconciliation and
forgiveness.
The Zimbabwe Unity Movement (ZUM)
ZUM was the first opposition political party to be formed in post- inde-
pendence Zimbabwe. It was formed immediately after the signing of the
Unity Accord. It was formed by Edgar Tekere, a former ZANU PF Secre-
tary General. Tekere is one of the founding members of ZANU PF and
he played a pivotal role in the liberation struggle. In the mid-1980s,
Zimbabwe began to experience higher levels of corruption in both the
public and private sectors. The first case of infamous corruption oc-
curred when government ministers engaged themselves in the buying
and reselling of luxurious cars known as the “Willogate scandal”. The
majority of the ministers who were involved in the scandal resigned and
one of them committed suicide. The civil society in general and Univer-
sity of Zimbabwe Students in particular protested against this infamous
act by high-ranking government officials.
The government reacted with a heavy-handed repression of the civil
society. In the case of the University of Zimbabwe, the government
passed the University of Zimbabwe Amendment Act (1990) in which it
outlawed student protests. According to Ncube (1989), the university was