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.
