daniel chigunwe
Wallace Ruzvidzo Herald Reporter
Preparations for the burial of national hero Cde Abraham Kabasa have begun although the date has not yet been set.
Cde Kabasa (91), who was a member of the Zanu PF National Consultative Assembly and former Governor for Mashonaland East, succumbed to prostate cancer on April 29.
Zanu PF national chairperson Cde Oppah Muchinguri-Kashiri delivered the news of national hero status to the Kabasa family home on Wednesday.
Last night, Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage Minister Kazembe Kazembe said consultations with the family on the burial date were on-going.
“I have nothing to share with you at this moment concerning the date of burial because we are still discussing with the family. But I will let you know as soon as we have finalised.”
A statement from the Ministry of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services yesterday indicated that Cde Kabasa’s body will today leave Charles Gumbo Barracks where it lay in state yesterday, and will be taken to his farm in Mutoko, under Chief Charehwa, near Nyamakope Primary School.
A church service would be held today at United Methodist Church in Mutoko and the body will lie in state at the farm.
A funeral parade will be held tomorrow at Chikondoma Stadium where those in Mashonaland East will be given an opportunity to bid farewell to the national hero, before he is being taken back to Charles Gumbo Barracks in Harare.
In an interview last night Mr Sam Kabasa, son of the hero, expressed gratitude to President Mnangagwa for according national hero status to his father.
“We want to say thank you to the President and Government for recognising him and honouring him. We would like to say that we are deeply honoured and the status has been granted to a befitting and decent man.
“He was a humble and well-groomed man who strongly believed in hard work. He was a man who did not accept things he did not work for; he believed in honest work. That is the kind of man he was,” he said.
Born on December 22, 1932, Cde Kabasa was a Standard Six Holder and a qualified State Certificate Nurse.
He trained nursing at the then Salisbury General Hospital (now a part of Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals) and was also a laboratory and dental technician.
Cde Kabasa worked as a nurse employed by the Ministry of Health and Child Care for 25 years and served at Marondera, Bindura, Binga and Mutoko district hospitals.
He started political activism after he was touched by the racial segregation of service conditions in the colonial Ministry of Health and the whole civil service, where he became an active member of the Nurses Association.
He was inspired by several political rallies addressed by nationalists that included Zimbabwe’s founding President, Cde Robert Mugabe, one of which was at Chipadze in Bindura in 1964, and that made him join the party.
At the height of the liberation struggle, Cde Kabasa was in charge of Makosa Rural Hospital in Mutoko where he became heavily involved in the struggle by supplying drugs to the comrades, clothes, shoes, wrist watches and money. He was also involved in mobilising people to join the liberation struggle.
The hospital was turned into a centre of communication for the sake of supplies, mealie-meal and any other necessary requirements for their cooking.
Cde Kabasa was harassed by Smith’s security forces and at one time, his home was burnt down.
He was also detained for three years at Mutoko Prison, but that did not stop him from communicating with liberation fighters.
At independence, he became a Member of Parliament where he became Deputy Speaker and Chairman of Committees in Parliament, Chairman of the Union of Zimbabwe African Parliamentarians, and was a member of the African Union and the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and attended several meetings abroad.
Cde Kabasa is survived by wife Miriam and 14 children.
Peter Tanyanyiwa
Online Reporter