Thursday 12 September 2019

FAMILY : MUGABE TO BE BURIED IN ZVIMBA

Former president Robert Mugabe will be buried in a private ceremony in his home village early next week, his family have said. 


Mugabe, who died last Friday at the age of 95, has proved troublesome even in death with his family and his successor Emmerson Mnangagwa seemingly at loggerheads about the plans for his funeral.

Mnangagwa wants to bury him at the Heroes Acre memorial in Harare, where a grave is waiting for him and where his first wife Sally is buried.

However, Mugabe's family say he wanted to be buried in his home village and did not want Mnangagwa, who helped to depose him in 2017, presiding over his funeral.

Today the family appears to have won that battle, his nephew Leo Mugabe saying that the Heroes Acre ceremony was out.

In the meantime, mourners will pay their respects to Mugabe's coffin at a stadium in Harare today.
Though his rule was marked by violence and economic crisis, Mugabe remains popular with some Zimbabweans - especially with Mnangagwa struggling to revitalise the country. 

'His body will lie in state at Kutama on Sunday night.., followed by a private burial - either Monday or Tuesday - no National Heroes Acre. That's the decision of the whole family,' Leo Mugabe said. 

The row is highly political as Mnangagwa is close to the military generals who ended Mugabe's 37-year rule in late 2017.

They did so partly to stop the presidential ambitions of Mugabe's second wife, Grace, who had bitterly denounced Mnangagwa before her husband's downfall.

The family have also said that traditional chiefs in his homestead in the Zvimba region should decide where he should be buried.

Yesterday Mnangagwa and Grace Mugabe stood next to each other as the former President's body arrived back in the country from Singapore, where he died.

There was no show of antagonism during the short ceremony. daily mail

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