THE Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army (ZPRA) Veterans’ Association has resolved to approach government and the Bulawayo City Council requesting land to set up a separate national heroes’ acre for former PF-Zapu fighters.
BY SILAS NKALA
ZPRA Veterans’ Association chairperson Ben Ncube told Southern Eye yesterday that they decided to have their own shrine after being frustrated by Zanu PF’s monopolisation of the National Heroes’ Acre.
“As long as the government does not recognise ZPRA war veterans, we are going ahead with the efforts to secure land for our cadres. We are seeking land from council. We have set up a committee to look into that. This is at an initial stage, but we hope the council will not disappoint us,” he said.
He said if council turned down the request, they would engage the Department of Museums, Monuments and Heritage seeking permission to bury their cadres at Phuphu Shrines in Lupane, where the Ndebele heroes who fought with the former settlers are buried.
Ncube added that the ex-ZPRA fighters were also bitter after over 20 000 of their members were left out in the vetting process.
The process, led by the late former Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans’ Association leader, Chenjerai Hunzvi in the late 1990s, vetted war veterans for injuries sustained during the liberation war for purposes of compensating them under the War Victims Compensation Fund.
Some war veterans claimed 100% disability, while others’ injuries were understated during the vetting exercise.
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“On the issue of ZPRA cadres being sidelined in the vetting process, this is an issue which we had gone some length with the former War Veterans minister Tshinga Dube. He took our concerns to Parliament and a Bill was to be tabled for discussion hoping to have it formalised. We will try to engage the new minister, Cain Mathema, to see if progress can be made on our concerns.”
Tshinga was recently dropped from Cabinet and replaced by Mathema when the ruling party started purging those suspected to be linked to former Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa who was being accused of creating parallel government structures and fuelling factionalism.
Three months ago, ZPRA Veterans’ Association secretary-general Petros Sibanda also raised concern over Zanu PF’s “deliberate attempts to distort and belittle the role played by ZPRA combatants during the liberation war”.
“The narrative has been turned into a Zanu and Zanla conquering affair, while the role of Zapu and ZPRA was totally erased from the face of the earth. The government today only commemorates and mentions those heroes whom they deem to have been politically correct in the eyes of Zanu PF,” Sibanda said then.
He said ZPRA and Zapu’s outstanding fighters had been reduced to villains while their Zanu PF counterparts were accorded hero status.
