Online Reporter
Zimbabweans will today gather at district and provincial shrines across the country to pay tribute to the gallant sons and daughters who sacrificed their lives to liberate the country. The main commemorations will however be at the National Heroes Acre in Harare where President Mnangagwa will lead the proceedings.
This is the time when the nation pays homage to the country’s heroes and heroines who paid with their lives to liberate the country.
It is that time of the year when citizens reflect on the country’s achievements and failures since Independence in 1980.
One of the biggest achievements that we look back with pride is the successful implementation of the land reform programme.
More than 300 000 families are now owners of land in areas that include what used to be a preserve of the white commercial farmers.
Most Zimbabweans before independence were confined to barren land while white commercial farmers occupied prime farming areas in different parts of the country. The skewed land ownership was one of the major grievances that drove Zimbabweans to take up arms to fight the settler regime.
The Government soon after independence embarked on a programme to resettle thousands of landless Zimbabweans but the process was moving at a snail’s pace due to resistance from white farmers.
In 2000 the landless Zimbabweans invaded farms owned by white commercial farmers to protest against the slow pace at which they were being resettled thereby prompting Government to embark on a fast track land reform programme.
This has seen about 300 000 families being resettled throughout the country and what is encouraging is that most of these farmers have demonstrated that they have the capacity to fully utilise the land.
The gallant sons and daughters who sacrificed with their lives to get the land back to its rightful owners, should be smiling in their graves now that the country is self-sufficient in food. Among the major success stories of the land reform programme is the production of adequate wheat to meet the country’s annual consumption.
A total of 50 000 veterans of the liberation struggle will this year be honoured countrywide as part of the Heroes Day commemorations. Zimbabweans have an obligation to jealously guard the freedom they are enjoying which they should not take for granted.
Those who colonised us yesterday are still fighting us economically hence the illegal sanctions imposed on the country for embarking on the land reform programme.
These are the same detractors causing divisions hence the need for Zimbabweans to remain united as we build the Zimbabwe we all want.
We want to once again implore citizens to put shoulder to the wheel as we work to build a prosperous Zimbabwe for the benefit of present and future generations.
Let us prove that the sacrifices of our gallant sons and daughters, some of whose remains are interred in unmarked graves inside and outside the country, were not in vain.
Bongani Ndlovu