Fallen heroes’ remains re-buried

Samuel Kadungure Senior Reporter
THE skeletal remains of victims of colonial atrocities perpetrated by the Rhodesian forces retrieved from a remote mine shaft at Matumba Six and Haparari Village in Mutasa six months ago were finally buried last Friday. The reburial was graced by Vice-President Dr Joice Mujuru. War veterans, collaborators, politicians, civil servants and journalists thronged Matumba Six Mine to accord the 71 fallen heroes a befitting reburial with the burial rites being performed by the chief exhumers from the Fallen Heroes Trust of Zimbabwe.

The freedom fighters sang revolutionary songs, chanted slogans and denounced whites for committing the atrocities.
Among the songs that reconnected the singers and audience to their past struggle were Sunga Bhandiriya, Mwoyo Wangu, Usatya Comrade, Zimbabwe Ndeyeropa and Chikopo-kopo.

Even the likes of Cde Oppah Muchinguri, Mandi Chimene and Dr Ellen Gwaradzimba, who were perched in the podium would at the sound of each lyric, desert their VIP seats to join their colleagues on the dance floor. They danced at the site in an ancient ritual to appease the spirits of those killed by white troops before independence in 1980.

Some villagers went into trances, while others wept and simulated firing guns.
The exhumed skeletons, bones and remains were covered by sheets and blankets before being put in separate coffins.

Hair and clothes were clearly visible; several corpses had military gear on, an official from the National Museum and Monuments said.
The mine shaft had ceased emitting an overwhelming stench as was the case when the retrievals were done.

Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans’ Association national spokesperson and Fallen Heroes Trust of Zimbabwe national treasurer Cde Mandi Chimene said forensic tests and DNA analysis of the remains won’t be carried out. Instead, she said traditional leaders and lead exhumers from FHTZ would perform rites to invoke spirits that would identify the dead.

The Herbert Mine remains were discovered early this year by gold-panners, but mysterious incidents characterised the area as the spirits of the fallen guerillas allegedly possessed villagers and children in the district.

Reports from Matumba Six indicate that strange things were happening as the fallen heroes were demanding their reburial by marching and singing revolutionary songs at night. Some of them were reported to have manifested themselves through Chief Mutasa’s son, recently, demanding their reburial.

Then FHTZ chairperson Cde George Rutanhire, took to the podium giving a brief background to the liberation struggle.
Cde Rutanhire said the unbearable yoke of British imperialism forced sons and daughters of the soil to join the liberation struggle though they lacked basic resources.

“At the peak of the liberation struggle the brutality of Rhodesians increased and thousands of people were massacred and these included civilians, children and defenceless women. Those captured were killed and their bodies dumped in mine shafts like this one,” explained Cde Rutanhire.

He hailed the role being played by spirit mediums in the exhumation of thousand of skeletal remains of freedom fighters scattered in shallow and mass graves across the country.

FHTZ had led the detection, retrieval and identification of the remains after consultation with spirit mediums from Chief Mutasa.
FHTZ was tasked by Government with the exhumation and decent reburials of those who perished during the struggle.

Cde Rutanhire said the reburial was expected to put to rest some strange happenings that were taking place in the area, which villagers attributed to the restless spirits of the freedom fighters whose remains had been in the open for the past six months.

He added that Zimbabwe will never enjoy peace until the spirits of those lying in the forests and mountains awaiting decent burials were appeased.
“We are told that 52 000 people participated and died during the war. The figures of those who perished in Mozambique, Botswana and Zambia is between 10 000 and 15 000, out of 52 000, where are the rest? This is the major problem leading to all these problems and misunderstandings in the country.

“Mweya mizhinji iri mumasango, mweya mizhinji iri kugunun’una iri mumasango, vabereki vevana ivavo vari kugunun’una, kana mhepo idzodzo dzasangana dzinochema dzichiti kudii? Nyonga-nyonga yavekuwanikwa munyika, bishi nemheremhere, mhirizhonga nemvongamupopoto! Where are the grey-haired who should be the depository of wisdom as all this unfolds? Why can they not put their heads together and find a lasting solution to these problems?” asked Cde Rutanhire.

He added: “We might have finished the liberation struggle in 1980, but there are several important rituals which we aborted half way. We did not complete the work that we agreed to complete during the war. We said on attaining independence we would collect the remains of all those who would have perished during the war for reburial in a free Zimbabwe,” said Cde Rutanhire.

Home Affairs Minister Cde Kembo Mohadi echoed the same sentiments saying it was high time Government offered full-scale funding towards the exhumation and reburials of remains of victims of the brutal Ian Smith regime.

“At the moment my ministry does not have a budget. Surely we must have some funding for this programme. Such functions are Government programmes,” he said.
Dr Mujuru said the lid that the Smith regime wanted to keep tightly sealed was blown off and the bones were tumbling out.

She admitted that it would be a travesty and great shame if a free Zimbabwe failed to accord these fallen children of Mbuya Nehanda a befitting burial.
Dr Mujuru said the dumping into disused mines of the remains of the victims of the Rhodesian atrocities was a calculated strategy to hide the senseless and evil massacres from the eyes of the international community.

“The tragic and atrocious events that are represented by this place remind us that the history of our struggle for freedom, the struggle for our political and economic independence and social justices has been and continues to be a hard, difficult and earthshaking struggle against the imperialist British aggressors.

“The discovery of these victims of the independence war in this disused mine is testimony to the huge price that we as a suppressed people had to pay to regain our dignity and identity as a people.

“We are here to honour this sacrifice, the supreme sacrifice of the 71 comrades who lie before us paid to make it possible for Zimbabwe to become a sovereign nation and an equal member of the community of nations in 1980. These killings were indiscriminate and widespread to the extent that it bordered on genocide,” said Dr Mujuru.
Apart from Herbert Mine, 800 remains of fallen freedom fighters were exhumed from Chibondo in Mt Darwin and 124 others at the Butcher Site in Rusape.
Indeed the mass graves in Chibondo in Mt Darwin and the Butcher in Rusape are just but a tip of the iceberg.