Exhumations: Govt takes over

fighters and supporters in Chibondo, Mt Darwin, and other places countrywide
The process was being run by a voluntary organisation – the Zimbabwe Fallen Heroes Trust.
War veteran and Zanu-PF Politburo member Cde George Rutanhire leads the trust.
Home Affairs co-Minister Kembo Mohadi told the ZBC yesterday that he discussed the matter with Vice President Joice Mujuru.
He said they had agreed to advise the President on the matter and he recommended that Government takes over the process.
Minister Mohadi said the President said a monument should be erected at the site in memory of the freedom fighters and people massacred by the Ian Smith regime.
“When we discussed this issue with Vice President Mujuru we thought that it was prudent that we advise the President on what was happening.
“The President said those people should be given decent burial where they are and build a monument there and give it to the National Museums and Monuments to do what they know best.
“As we speak right now, the Ministry has already taken over and we are going to rebury them there and build a shrine that can be seen by everybody and recognised by Zimbabweans.
“We are not going to bury them in the shaft but at a place around that area,” he said.
Without blaming the trust for the exhumations, Minister Mohadi stressed that Zanu-PF had never discussed the issue.
He said whatever was done in Chibondo was the work of the ZFHT in its capacity as a voluntary trust.
“Cde Rutanhire is a Politburo member. He is not doing it on behalf of the Politburo but the Trust,” said Minister Mohadi.
He said his Secretary Mr Melusi Matshiya and Mashonaland Central Governor and Resident Minister Martin Dinha held a meeting with members of the Trust regarding the takeover of the process.
Minister Mohadi said such experts as pathologists should be involved in the process.
The Trust had exhumed remains of more than 400 freedom fighters believed to have been dumped in the shaft.