Pretoria - The Zimbabwe Communist Party said while it vehemently disagreed with the late former president Robert Mugabe during his tenure, the family of the strongman should be allowed to have the last word on where he was buried.
The row over the final resting place of Mugabe’s remains has been revived.
A traditional chief in the district where Mugabe’s remains were buried ordered that he be dug up and reburied at the national heroes’ shrine in Harare.
The general-secretary of the Zimbabwe Communist Party, Ngqabutho Nicholas Mabhena, said his organisation was against having a centralised heroes shrine.
“Our position is that our heroes and heroines must be buried among their people.
“Families should have a say on where their loved ones should be buried – whether at the national heroes acre or in their own villages where it will be easier for their children to visit the graves and to perform rituals,” said Mabhena.
“This is what we have been calling for, even before former president Robert Mugabe passed away, while he was insisting that those declared national heroes by the Zanu-PF politburo should be interred at the National Heroes Acre. We’ve always said that it was a wrong move by Zanu-PF and the Zimbabwean government.”
Yesterday, independent daily NewsDay reported that Chief Zvimba, born Stanley Wurayayi Mhondoro, had ordered the exhumation of Mugabe’s body and reburial at Heroes Acre on July 1, igniting rage from his family.
At the insistence of his relatives, with his widow Grace Mugabe leading the charge, the late president was buried at his rural village rather than the Heroes Acre in Harare, in September 2019.
Grace Mugabe, who is reportedly out of the country, was fined five heads of cattle and a goat over the family’s 2019 defiance.
African News Agency (ANA)