Correspondent|White City Stadium in Bulawayo on Friday turned out into a no holds barred battle ground as speaker after speaker at the Dumiso Dabengwa Memorial Service condemned the ruling ZANU PF party, government and the army for continued brutality on the people of Zimbabwe.
The Zanu-PF officials and military commanders who were in attendance probably had their longest day as they froze speechless with each speaker narrating how the regime treated the country’s greatest liberation war fighter after independence.
Dabengwa’s brother, Jabu, fired first, saying the former intelligence chief of ZAPU’s armed wing, ZIPRA, left behind a suffering nation due to continued failures by the ruling party.
“He was a principled man, he loved people. He wanted to see prosperity in this country, he wanted see people free and happy,” he said.
He recalled how Dabengwa, having been acquitted on charges of treason, was held indefinitely under colonial-era emergency laws by the new government after Zimbabwe’s independence.
“I visited him at Chikurubi, after he was arrested. One day I said to him ‘when are they saying you will come out of prison?’ He said, ‘I don’t know. They said if I don’t join Zanu I will never come out.’ He told me he had his principles, he would have to die first before anyone could force him to leave ZAPU,” Jabu recalled.
Dabengwa, who died in Nairobi, Kenya, on May 23, also yearned for the return of ZAPU properties and ZIPRA files from the war, which were seized by the government during Gukurahundi.
Jeremy Brickhill, a white ZIPRA veteran who named his son Dumiso, turned up the temperatures with a rousing speech, extolling the virtues of the liberation war hero before adding to loud cheers: “In his last days, Dumiso always tried to find solutions. Dumiso always sought a way forward. He was engaged in dialogue even with those who would not listen.
“Today, more than ever, we need to find solutions to the problems in our country; we need to complete our quest for true liberation. To the young people here, I say pick up the spear and free yourselves as Dumiso did.
ZAPU Acting president, Isaac Mabuka called on President Emmerson Mnangagwa to set up an independent body, to deal with the controversial issue of conferring heroes’ status on outstanding Zimbabweans.
Mabuka said because Zanu-PF was monopolising the heroe status, there are people who cannot leave the ruling party for fear of not being declared heroes when they die.
He added the issue must not be the sole responsibility of the ruling Zanu PF party.
“The President (Mnangagwa) has set so many commissions. If the so called new dispensation is really new, the President should appoint an independent commission, which selects national heroes and heroines.
“These days we have people who cannot leave Zanu-PF just because they want to be declared heroes when they die,” said Mabuka.
He blasted Zanu PF legislators who refused to observe a moment of silence for Dabengwa in Parliament, describing them as ignorant.
“Only four days ago, we heard that in Parliament, some MPs shouted the name of Dabengwa and I have seen the Minister of Industry (Mangaliso Ndlovu) here. I would like to send a message that Dabengwa cannot be called a traitor. I believe even the generals behind me would not agree with that. The party must reign in on those members,” Mabuka said.
“That they sit in Parliament we fought for and say Dabengwa is a traitor, we do not agree with that.”
Mabuka said Dabengwa had been fighting all along since independence to have the Zapu and Zipra records, which were confiscated by government, returned and until he died, that had not happened.
MDC leader Nelson Chamisa was barred from a VIP tent in which sat Zimbabwe Defence Forces Commander General Phillip Valerio Sibanda, Prisons boss Commissioner General Paradzai Zimondi, Industry Minister Mangaliso Ndlovu, Deputy Defence Minister Victor Matemadanda and Bulawayo’s provincial affairs minister Ruth Ncube.
Chamisa finally found a seat at the front of an adjacent tent, where he was joined by his deputy Welshman Ncube, former Speaker of Parliament Lovemore Moyo and the Ndebele king Bulelani Lobengula.