Mafela Trust plans joint Zipra, Zanla catalogue project

THE Bulawayo-based Mafela Trust, has announced plans to produce a joint catalogue of military exploits by the county's two main liberation war movements - Zanla and Zipra.

The trust was founded in the early 1990s by the late Vice-President Joshua Nkomo to exclusively collate information and reconstruct material on Zipra's liberation war exploits after most documented records were confiscated by the Zanu PF government during the Gukurahundi era.

Zapu, then led by Nkomo, also lost several properties including farms and commercial buildings after they were seized by President Robert Mugabe's government and forfeited to the State.

Mafela Trust director, Zephaniah Nkomo told Southern Eye last week that his organisation was now planning to engage ex-Zanla fighters and include them in the writing of the history of the two liberation movements' operations.

"We are currently engaging both Zanla and Zipra in the writing of the history of the liberation struggle," Nkomo said.

"We are still talking to each other and soon we might start working on the project."Since its inception in 1992, the organisation has helped in identifying over 10 000 comrades and civilians who died during the liberation struggle whose remains and whereabouts are not known.

The trust says it plans to produce registers which will then be used in compiling a roll of honour, to be displayed at all Heroes' Acres across the country for inspection by members of the public and relatives of the departed comrades.

The organisation also aims to reunite children sired in foreign countries by liberation fighters, with their families back home.

Mafela Trust, is credited with coming up with the pilgrimages to Zambia to visit sites where Zimbabwe's liberation war fighters camped and trained before being deployed to the war front.