BULAWAYO – War hero Dumiso Dabengwa was laid to rest in Ntabazinduna on Saturday, after President Emmerson Mnangagwa and his deputies boycotted.
Mnangagwa’s representative, Matabeleland North provincial affairs minister Richard Moyo, was heckled and forced to cut short his address as he spoke from a government-supplied podium with a huge portrait of Mnangagwa at the front.
Dabengwa, who died in Kenya on May 23 while returning from India where he was treated for liver disease, was laid to rest alongside his mother at the family’s rural home in Manxeleni village. He was 79.
Amid scenes of toyi-toying ZIPRA veterans, the former ZIPRA intelligence supremo was eulogised as an outstanding soldier who cared about each guerrilla he sent to battle.
Ayanda Dlodlo, South Africa’s intelligence minister, paid a moving tribute, describing Dabengwa as a “hero that none of us should have the luxury to forget.”
Dabengwa, she said, was “a commander of the Southern African liberation struggle, a defender of the rights of those that are downtrodden and a child of the world, an internationalist.”
“This dear soul is a hero not only of the Zimbabwean people, a hero not only of the Zimbabwean liberation struggle, he is a hero of South Africa too. Here lies a hero that none of us can ever take for granted. May his soul rise in revolutionary glory,” Dlodlo said.
Dlodlo said she had been asked by President Cyril Ramaphosa to represent him at the event, and she travelled together with Umkonto Wesizwe veterans who fought alongside Dabengwa.
Graveside, there was a dramatic moment when the MC announced that Dabengwa’s widow, Zodwa, had requested that MDC leader Nelson Chamisa be given an opportunity to speak.
Mourners cheered as Chamisa stepped forward before vowing to do everything in his power to preserve Dabengwa’s legacy.
“You instructed, as a commander, and we will execute your mission. We will finish what you started. We will complete the journey,” Chamisa said.
He added: “You were talking about ZAPU properties [taken by the government during Gukurahundi], they will come back to ZAPU. You were talking about the ZIPRA files that disappeared [during Gukurahundi], those files will come back. You were talking about devolution being our revolution, indeed it will be our revolution.
“You told us about Gukurahundi, we should not shy way from it. Let’s talk about it, apologise and make sure that we do what needs to be done to restore those who lost their lives, and those who lost their properties.
“How do we restore the lives lost? Just an apology and frankness and truth of what happened is a way of honouring those who lost their lives.”
Chamisa, who also attended Dabengwa’s memorial at White City Stadium on Friday where he was barred from the VIP tent, said he had not prepared to speak at the burial, telling mourners: “I thought just coming here was my speech.”
He chided President Mnangagwa and his deputies for failing to attend the burial of one of Zimbabwe’s foremost liberation heroes.
“Is it not a sad indictment that you have President Cyril Ramamphosa sending a senior minister to represent him, yet we have our vice presidents and our president not coming to honour this man? They have decided not to give the honour that is required to this man.”
General Phillip Valerio Sibanda, the commander of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces and a ZIPRA veteran, attended the burial along with Cabinet ministers Monica Mutsvangwa (Information), Mangaliso Ndlovu (Industry), Sithembiso Nyoni (SMEs), Judith Ncube (Bulawayo), deputy minister Victor Matemadanda (Defence) and the Speaker of Parliament Jacob Mudenda.
Opposition politicians Joice Mujuru, Thokozani Khupe, Tendai Biti, Welshman Ncube, David Coltart, Temba Mliswa and James Maridadi also joined the mourners along with war veterans leader Chris Mutsvangwa and his predecessor Jabulani Sibanda.
