DISGRUNTLED relatives of the late national hero Aguy Georgias yesterday claimed Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) operatives visited them on Monday night and ordered them to stop their planned boycott and attend the burial service at the National Heroes Acre. BY EVERSON MUSHAVA/RICHARD CHIDZA
The Zanu PF politician’s family members, drawn from his rural home in Chivhu, had threatened to boycott the event accusing top government officials of snubbing them in the burial arrangements.
“We (Ushe family) attended the burial as witnesses, we did not take part. Yesterday (Monday) some members from the CIO came here (Georgias’ Highlands home) to pressure us to attend. We later resolved to attend, but as witnesses,” Georgias’ brother, Herbert Ushe told NewsDay after the burial.
Ushe said two operatives, who claimed to be President Robert Mugabe’s advance team, had told them to attend the funeral and promised to provide transport, although this was not done.
“We used our own transport to the national shrine. We were never offered transport, despite that most buses were empty. At the burial, we were not even recognised. How can Aguy’s daughter represent us?”
Georgias, born Aguy Clement Ushe in Unyetu-Mutomba village 80 years ago, is said to have assumed a new identity and severed ties with his rural background shortly after arriving in the capital during the colonial era.
When he succumbed to heart and kidney complications last Friday and was subsequently declared a national hero, his rural relatives trooped to his Highlands home, although the official funeral wake was held at Jane Linda’s house in Strathaven.
The family members later resolved to boycott the burial, after it emerged that government officials were not keen to engage them on anything, but later dropped the decision after a nocturnal visit from the CIO on Monday night.
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Ushe said they were angered by the government’s decision to recognise Georgias’ “mistress” ahead of his legally married wife, Manana.
Linda’s daughter, Tina addressed mourners, as the family representative, stoking even more anger among the late hero’s relatives.
“How can we, as traditionalists, allow a 31-year-old to be the family representative, when there are uncles and a brother who could have easily taken that position? It is against our tradition,” he charged.
Little was said of the national hero’s family roots in the official obituary, except that he was born in Chivhu, Mashonaland East.
Ushe asked if they were being descriminated because they were black, as Geogias identified himself as of mixed race.
In his eulogy, Mugabe said Georgias had exhausted “every cent he owned” in legal fees, while trying to have the European Union sanctions imposed on the Zanu PF administration removed.
Georgias, Mugabe said, had sought help from him to pay mounting legal fees.
“He told me he had exhausted his money and his lawyers wanted to be paid. When I was going to Venezuela, he asked to go with me and I introduced him to (the late Venezuelan leader) Hugo Chavez.
“Chavez had promised that some money would be made available, but it never came until he died. We then found some money and the fees were paid,” Mugabe told mourners.
