Matabeleland

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Ma·ta·be·le·land

 (mä′tə-bĕl′ā-lănd′)
A former province of Rhodesia between the Limpopo and Zambezi Rivers. Inhabited by the Ndebele from the early 1800s, it came under the control of the British South Africa Company in 1889. The area is now divided into two provinces in western Zimbabwe.
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Matabeleland

(ˌmætəˈbiːlɪˌlænd; -ˈbɛlɪ-)
n
(Placename) a region of W Zimbabwe, between the Rivers Limpopo and Zambezi, comprises three provinces, Matabeleland North, Matabeleland South, and Bulawayo: rich gold deposits. Chief town: Bulawayo. Area: 181 605 sq km (70 118 sq miles)
Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014
References in periodicals archive
The 28-year-old joins the club following a recommendation from former Ferguslie professional Keith Dabengwa, with the pair teammates at Zimbabwe cricket franchise Matabeleland Tuskers.
Now, she says, "it's become this thing that I cannot get out of my head." Tshuma grew up in Matabeleland, where much of the violence took place, and eventually made her way to the United States, where she was accepted to the prestigious Iowa Writers' Workshop.
For instance, two years after the attainment of independence, the notion of filth was used to designate dissenting voices in the regions of Matabeleland and the Midlands in what has come to be known as the Gukurahundi massacres.
Mnangagwa was in charge of national security at the time of the 1982-87 assault in Matabeleland, and analysts said the Bulawayo rally blast could have been calculated to implicate Mnangagwa's Ndebele opponents and stir up trouble.
Another cabinet minister is the airforce boss -- Air Marshal Perence Shiri, who had previously headed a special North-Korean trained unit that is alleged to have committed atrocities during a crackdown on a rebellion in the western Matabeleland province in the early 1980s.
Air Marshal Shiri is directly linked to the Matabeleland massacre of thousands of people by a North Korea-trained military brigade in the 1980s when Mr Mugabe moved against a political rival.
One cannot help reflecting on what all of Mugabe's scheming, and killings (the Matabeleland massacre); the intimidation and beatings of opposition figures; the cowing of the population; the destruction of one of Africa's most promising economies; the exodus of millions of Zimbabweans to foreign lands just to keep body and soul together; the unchecked looting of the national treasury; the pomp and arrogance while ordinary folk were scrambling around for food for their children; and the endless misery of being Zimbabwean, has amounted to?
After independence in 1980, Mnangagwa, then the state security minister, directed the "Gukurahundi" massacres of supposed dissidents in the Matabeleland and Midlands provinces.
However, Mnangagwa's history as state security chief during the so-called Gukurahundi crackdown, when an estimated 20,000 people were killed by the Fifth Brigade in Matabeleland in the early 1980s, suggested that quick, sweeping change was unlikely.
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