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Ivan Zhakata, Harare Bureau
PRESIDENT Mnangagwa will today officially confer national hero status on the late liberation struggle icon, Cde James Robert Dambaza Chikerema at a ceremony in Kutama, Zvimba.
In a statement, the Ministry of Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage said a brief ceremony would be held at the family homestead where Defence and War Veterans Affairs Minister Oppah Muchinguri-Kashiri, will represent the President in laying a wreath on Cde Chikerema’s grave.
“Following the declaration of national hero status on the late Cde James Robert Dambaza Chikerema (posthumously) on 25 August 2022 by His Excellency Cde Dr E.D. Mnangagwa, the Ministry of Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage wishes to advise the nation that the official conferment ceremony shall be held this Saturday, 12 August 2023,” the Ministry said.
“The main event shall be held at Kutama College in Zvimba District of Mashonaland West Province. A brief ceremony shall be held at the family homestead where only a few invited guests, senior Government officials, Zanu-PF party officials and the guest of honour will attend.
“Members of the public will be addressed at Kutama College where the main event shall take place.”
James Chikerema who was born on April 2, 1925 and died on March 22, 2006, served as the president of the Front for the Liberation of Zimbabwe.
He changed his views on militant struggle in the late 1970s and supported the “internal settlement”, serving in the attempted power-sharing governments.
Chikerema was born at Kutama Mission in Zvimba, in present-day Mashonaland West province.
The late former President Robert Mugabe, who was his nephew, shared the same birthplace and the two were very close during childhood. He was educated at St Francis Xavier College in Kutama and in South Africa. He became President of the Southern Rhodesia National Youth League and in 1956 led a bus boycott by Africans to protest their lack of political power and against the electoral system in Rhodesia under which most Africans were not eligible to vote.
With Didymus Mutasa, George Nyandoro, Guy Clutton-Brock, Michael and Eileen Haddon, white liberals who donated their land, he helped create Cold Comfort Farm to improve African farming methods and then form the African National Congress.
The ANC campaigned for an extension of the franchise, but was banned within two years of its birth.
Online Reporter