DUMISO Dabengwa’s Zapu has cast aspersions over Zanu PF’s sincerity to convert the late Vice-President Joshua Nkomo’s house into a museum, saying the intention was an attempt to distort the history of the former PF-Zapu’s Pelandaba residence.
By NQOBANI NDLOVU
Nkomo’s driver was killed at the house in the early 1980s during a “Zanu PF raid to kill the late Vice-President”, and “we are concerned with their real intentions,” Zapu deputy spokesperson, Iphithule Maphosa said on Friday.
Maphosa said the Zanu PF gesture should not be taken as a sincere move, but an attempt to erase the suffering that Nkomo endured in the 1980s.
“Our biggest concern is the intention to further distort the history of that Pelandaba residence. Knowing Zanu PF, we know they will never mention how they executed the raid on that fateful day.
“They will never denote where their gunmen were positioned when they opened fire on the residence. They will never tell the nation and world who fired the shot that killed Nkomo’s driver and the position he fell and lay lifeless,” Maphosa said.
“Neither will they tell who ordered the raid on Nkomo’s house with intention to murder him. They will never tell why they raided the house that they now intend to turn into a museum, yet this is very critical information about the Pelandaba residence.”
Maphosa said bullet marks at the Pelandaba house should be preserved in the same way the bullet marks at President Robert Mugabe’s house in Highfield, Harare, have been preserved. The house was attacked by the Rhodesians, but Mugabe was not around at the time.
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“Building a museum of the magnitude of the Pelandaba residence is different from ordering a North Korean-made brass statue and erecting it along Main Street in Bulawayo. A statue has no history, but the Pelandaba residence possesses all the history of the nationalist’s liberation struggle.
“Right now, the history syllabus is dead silent on the contributions of Zapu, Zipra and Joshua Nkomo to the liberation of this country,” Maphosa said.
Zanu PF Bulawayo provincial chairperson, Dennis Ndlovu could not be reached for comment at the time of going to print.
