Maravi

(NEWZIMBABWE) Mugabe’s angry row with Msika over heroes

Mugabe’s angry row with Msika over heroes
by Staff Reporter
18/09/2010 00:00:00

THE Late Vice President Joseph Msika reportedly accused President Robert Mugabe of developing cold feet and deserting the liberation war “when things really got tough” as the two fiercely rowed over the hero status of James Chikerema. The claim was made by Herald columnist Nathaniel Manheru – who is widely believed to be Mugabe’s spokesman George Charamba - in the Saturday issue of state-run newspaper.

Manheru claims he attended an exclusive meeting that discussed the possibility of granting Chikerema - who died in 2006 - national hero status with Mugabe making it clear he was against burying his late cousin at the National Heroes Acre. Manheru writes that Msika vehemently disagreed with Mugabe.

“But President Mugabe would have none of it and the temperature in the room rose; rose steadily to begin with, before rapidly leaping to furnace degrees. The two men squared up, shouting, with each moment of the altercation taking them higher, to a worse, hoarser domain,” Manheru stated.

Msika then reminded Mugabe that he and other “intellectuals” had once deserted the struggle when things got tough leaving the former vice president and other “uneducated ignoramuses” to bear the burden.

“President, do you recall that all you intellectuals deserted the struggle when things really got tough - Nkomo included- and it was only me, Nyandoro, Chikerema, Nyagumbo and Tekere who bore the burden of the whole struggle?

“Mese makatiza muchizviti maintellectuals - vanaStanlake Samkange, vana Enoch Dumbutshena - and you would call us…, to mean ignoramuses, uneducated people driven more by brawn than by brains. You distanced yourselves and people like Chikerema stood firm. You intellectuals!” Msika is said to have charged.

However Mugabe refused to back down angrily retorting that Chiekerema - who launched PF Zapu with Dr Joshua Nkomo and briefly led the party in exile while Nkomo was in detention – had betrayed his comrades when he joined up with Bishop Abel Muzorewa and Ian Smith as part of the Internal Settlement.

Mugabe is said to have hit back: “Precisely Joseph, the more reason Chikerema did not have to betray that same revolution towards which he had made such enormous sacrifices. Did he have to join hands with Ian Smith? Throwing bombs at us – in Mozambique, in Zambia – and celebrating about it? And becoming unrepentant about it right up to the end?

The President is said to have told Msika he would bury his cousin back in their home village at Zvimba.

“You know very well, Joseph, that we all agreed in the Party to the principle of ‘consistency and persistence’ as so key to our definition of national hero. You want Chikerema to sleep alongside macomrades avakabhomba? Tigoti tiri kuitei? Dambaza is my cousin and I will go to bury him kwaZvimba. Not kuHeroes Acre. Apo kwete!,” he declared.

Mugabe told the meeting that only those “who sacrificed for the independence of this country, without faltering” would be buried at the national shrine insisting this position would not change as long as veterans of the struggle lived.

Msika eventually relented but remained “unconvinced still simmering at this effrontery of a longtime comrade”, Manheru wrote.

The debate over national heroes recently flared following the death of MDC-M Vice President Gibson Sibanda with his party supported by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai insisting he deserved to be honoured with the status.

But President Mugabe and his Zanu PF party only offered Sibanda a state-assisted funeral at his Filabusi rural home.

Labels: JAMES CHIKEREMA, JOSEPH MSIKA, ROBERT MUGABE

posted by MrK @ 2:54 AM