The security agents reportedly threatened the Ibhetshu LikaZulu activists with arrest on accusations that they were holding an unsanctioned ceremony at St Paul Secondary School, where remains of people allegedly killed during Gukurahundi were discovered last month.
Pupils playing football at the school discovered bones sticking out the red earth when the playing ground caved in.
Moses Mzila-Ndlovu, the co-National Healing minister, who has visited the area, said the school where the human remains were found, used to be a detention site during the 1980’s Matabeleland and Midlands massacres dubbed Gukurahundi.
Ibhetshu LikaZulu coordinator, Mbuso Fuzwayo, said the pressure group was consulting villagers on the need to fence off the area where the skeletons were found, only to be stopped by security agents who said the meeting was illegal.
“It is not proper for the skeletons to continue to be exposed. That is a mass grave and as an organisation, we wanted to involve the community, to hear from them what could be done to the area so that the skeletons are not tampered with.
“We thought it could be best if the area is fenced off pending a proper ceremony where there could be proper exhumations by experts and later, proper burials. But the community is the one that was going to have the last say.
“We could not continue with our meeting, as some people claiming to be security agents stopped it,” Fuzwayo said.
He said Ibhetshu LikaZulu had approached Mzila-Ndlovu’s organ on national healing to disccuss the need to fence off the area before proper exhumations and burials were held.
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Mzila-Ndlovu was quoted last week saying there was need for “a lot of preparatory work”, which would include “deploying counsellors and psychologists who can move in and help communities cope with their trauma.”
