A FORMER Zipra combatant and co-minister of the Organ of National Healing, Integration and Reconciliation Moses Mzila Ndlovu has urged those who took part in the struggle for the country’s independence to expose fake war veterans.
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Ndlovu — who is also the MP for Bulilima West and deputy secretary-general in the MDC formation led by Welshman Ncube, said there were many people masquerading as ex-combatants.
He was speaking during a public lecture on the late Zipra combatant Ethan Allen Dube organised by Masakhaneni Project Trust in Bulawayo on Friday where Zapu president and former Zipra intelligence supremo Dumiso Dabengwa was the guest of honour.
Ndlovu said many fake war veterans have surfaced and were benefiting from government programmes at the expense of genuine ex-fighters who are wallowing in abject poverty.
“The distortions surrounding the history of who contributed to the liberation of this country are so much that corrections must be made,” said Ndlovu.
“We see more copycats who are thriving through claiming that they liberated this country. People like you, Dabengwa, who led the liberation struggle know that it’s a lie. The truth must be told and the copycats must be exposed and disgraced.”
Speaking during the lecture, Dabengwa said the late Dube was abducted in Botswana in 1974 by the Selous Scouts — who were part of a clandestine operation by the colonial regime to eliminate liberation fighters — while he was preparing for a mission to rescue Zapu members who had been detained by the Rhodesian government at Khami Prison in Bulawayo.
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He was never seen again.
“Dube is believed to have been killed following his abduction and I suspect that his remains are among those which were discovered at a Chibondo disused mine in Mount Darwin,” said Dabengwa.
Dube was declared a national hero and his tombstone is at the National Heroes’ Acre in Harare.
Dabengwa agreed that there was need to identify and honour true war veterans.
