Zapu has dismissed Unity Day as and urged President Mugabe to scrap it off the calendar as it is useless. According to Zapu, the day’s only redeeming quality is that it was an opportunity for “mourning our beloved relatives who were maimed by Mugabe.”
The day’s origins came on 22 December 1987 when Zanu and Zapu signed a Unity Accord in 1987 to end 5 years of civil strife and the infamous Gukurahundi. This resulted in the merging of the two parties to form Zanu-PF. However, former cabinet Minister Dumiso Dabengwa, re-established Zapu in 2008.
ZAPU vice President Lora Makuzva said:
It must be known to the people of Zimbabwe that our leader the late Joshua Nkomo, forcibly appended his signature on this accord with the mind of saving lives of people who were being massacred by Mugabe and not as a way of agreeing with Mugabe and he had no choice but to append his signature.
To us, this is a day of mourning our beloved relatives who were maimed by Mugabe.
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