Are you Nebele, if I may ask.

I am not myself, although one of my father's wives was, God rest her soul.

Let it be known that the average Shona shares the sense of outrage at this act of genocide.

The biggest problem for the people living oustide the Ndebele regions is that the facts have not yet been revealed. A trickle here, a trickle there, but we all know that Mr Mugabe is sitting on the information.

I was maybe 8 or 9 when they used to have the reports on TV and Herald that "dissidents" were being killed in Matebeleland. The impression was that it was a small handful of bandits terrrorising the countryside, and the army was there to save the people.

I think the rest of the country began to have an inkling of what really happened when mining prospectors unearthed mass graves. Then came the testimonies, of atrocities way beneath the African ethos.

In 1998, MABC-TV dared to screen a video on the massacres. They shut down that year. Before anyone says anything- MABC stands for Munhumutapa African Broadcasting Corporation. It is 100% Black owned, I know the owners very well. One of them has dreadlocks, although he is not Rastafarian. They were the first station in the country to have 100% local content in their programming, the first to give common people images of themselves. Why I am bringing this up is that there are certain people on this board- who have never been to Zimbabwe and could not point to it on a map- will say that since MABC screened such a video it must be sponsored by the West. ( If it was, it would afford the hefty licences the Government now demands of private broadcasters)

Getting back to the issue of Ndebeles.

It happened. A wholesale slaughter of a people.

But what will we hear on this board- "Uh, the West....."

PUH-LEEZ!!!