Can we still say afa anaka?

One wonders whether it would have made any difference if the Prime Minister had gone fishing at Kariba or to his rural home.

Tsvangirai announced his MDC was disengaging from Zanu (PF) because of that partys dilly-dallying over implementation of the Global Political Agreement. His decision must be viewed in light of this announcement. It must also be remembered that the PM has been to Heroes Acre since the signing of the power-sharing accord.

African culture and tradition respects the dead. The Shona people say afa anaka (you do not speak ill about the dead). However, there must be large numbers of people who do not go to Heroes Acre or celebrate heroes day. They do not necessarily mean disrespect for the sons and daughters who made enormous personal sacrifices for the motherland; some paid the ultimate price: their very lives.

Perhaps we should use the opportunity to remember the great unresolved debate over the criteria for and process of conferring the status, whether national, provincial or district. The complaint has repeatedly been made that selection is the exclusive prerogative of one political party, to the exclusion of all other parties or all organizations. The complaint, which is very valid, has never been satisfactorily addressed.

A review of the criteria for choosing fallen heroes should be among the numerous matters of varying importance and urgency the inclusive government need to attend to. A related matter is that of the war veterans and their cousins — the ex-political prisoners, detainees and restrictees, along with the mujibhas and chimbwidos associations.

All these groups who were involved in the liberation war in one way or another, cost the government directly and indirectly. The war vets will be remembered for successfully pressing the government to compensate them. Spearheaded by the late Dr Chenjerai Hunzvi, they won a one-off payment of $50 000 (or 50 kg as it was called at the time) and a monthly life pension. The 1998 unbudgeted expenditure resulted in what was known as black September when the Zimbabwe dollar fell to unprecedented levels. Did I read the other day that they were, like other government earners, pressing for the upping of their pension allowances and benefits?

Was I digressing? For the record, the last gamba to be interred at the national shrine was one of the on-the-spot commanders-in-chief of the crack Fifth Brigade that carried out the Gukurahundi operation in the Matebeleland and Midlands provinces in which some 20 000 civilians (men, women and children) were killed. The relatives of the victims would have to be real angels to say afa anaka.