Senior party members who spoke to The Zimbabwean this week said Mugabe was personalising the national Heroes Acre by making sure that very few people from Matabeleland were buried in the national shrine, creating an impression that only his original Zanu (PF) party and ZANLA, its military wing, fought colonialists and single-handedly brought independence to the country.
Party bigwigs in Matabeleland, especially Bulawayo, led by Vice President Joseph Msika, have demanded that the country’s history books be re-written to recognise the role played by PF ZAPU and its military wing, ZIPRA.
“All we want is to be accorded the respect and honour we deserve as liberators of this country,” said Msika. “We, the people of Matabeleland, are the ones that initiated the liberation struggle at Staneley Hall in Makokoba and we invited the people from other provinces to join us, but now there are some people who have hijacked the struggle and want to reap the rewards of what they did not initiate. We refuse that. We do not want these omafikizolo to dictate how our history should be told.”
The Bulawayo-based politicians said the issue arose after Didymus Mutasa, the party’s Secretary for Administration, had stalled in declaring former ZIPRA member retired Lieutenant Colonel Masala Sibanda a national war hero, until he was buried at Lady Stanely Cemetery in Bulawayo instead of the national shrine.
Sibanda’s case preceded that of the late Bulawayo City Council Town Clerk Stanely Donga, who also had to be buried at an ordinary cemetery in the city, and was later declared to be a liberation war hero.
Mutasa, however, has stood by his excuse of a communications breakdown rather than a deliberated decision.
“There was a network problem and that is all I can tell you. Those who believe otherwise are trying to set their own agendas and we will not allow that in the party,” he said. – Bayethe Zitha
Post published in: News