Former deputy prime minister Arthur Mutambara has dismissed the move by President Emmerson Mnangagwa to officially confer national hero status on Zanu founder Ndabaningi Sithole as a ‘fradulent charade’.
Sithole died in December 2000 in the United States and was
buried at his family farm in Mt Selinda, Chipinge.
He was denied hero status by the late Robert Mugabe because
of previous grudges dating back to the days of the liberation struggle.
In August last year, Mnangagwa conferred the national hero
status on Sithole and James Chikerema. Sithole was officially honoured
yesterday.
Mutambara, who served in government between 2009 and 2013,
said Zimbabweans always viewed the late Sithole as a hero and did not require
any endorsement from Zanu-PF.
“Zanu PF is not qualified to make or unmake Sithole's hero
status,” Mutambara said.
“More specifically, Mnangagwa (given his limited, frivolous
and undecorated involvement in the liberation struggle) is not qualified to
speak on Ndabaningi Sithole's heroic contributions to the liberation of
Zimbabwe.”
“Throughout his life in independent Zimbabwe, Sithole
suffered persecution and harassment at the hands of Zanu PF and its
government.”
“Hence the fraudulent charade and vote-buying gimmick at
Freedom Farm today must be condemned with the contempt that they deserve,”
Mutambara said.
Sithole was the founding president of Zimbabwe African
National Union (Zanu) in 1963.
He was subsequently jailed along with other nationalists
including Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo in 1964.
He was later deposed in a palace coup engineered by Mugabe
who accused him of denouncing the liberation struggle during a court trial in
1975.
Sithole, then labelled a sellout, later served in the
executive of the transitional government of Zimbabwe-Rhodesia in 1979.
He later formed another party, Zanu Ndonga, with a strong
support base among his own Ndau people in Chipinge.
The overwhelming support which Sithole and Zanu Ndonga
received from Chipinge made him a major opposition force against Zanu PF and Mugabe. Standard
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