Neglect of ex-Zipra cadre irks Mafela Trust

Mafela Trust has expressed outrage at the government's failure to accord hero's status to a late ex-Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army (ZPRA) intelligence official, Simeon Nkomo, who died last Friday after a short illness.

Nkomo was buried on Monday morning at Luveve Cemetery.

Mafela Trust director, Zephaniah Nkomo said lack of communication among the war veterans had led to burial of Twilight, as he was affectionately known, "among other cadres at Luveve Cemetery".

"This intelligence cadre should have been at provincial heroes acre with his fellow comrades, whom he fought alongside with or at Lady Stanley, where his commanders lie," he said.

"He contributed immensely to the liberation of Zimbabwe. We are saddened that communication is not effective and as a result he is buried here. I believe that if communication was done in a proper way, even the Vice-President (Phelekezela Mphoko) and Bulawayo Provincial Affairs minister Eunice Sandi Moyo would be here."

The late Nkomo joined the liberation struggle in 1975 and trained at Mwembeshi in the same year and later in Morogoro in Tanzania.

He went for advanced training in Russia, specialising in military hardware and intelligence.

Upon his return, he was deployed at ZPRA headquarters as one of the support staff to the arms logistics led by Mphoko.

In 1976, he was part of the Zimbabwe People's Army delegation in Mozambique, which had, among others, Mphoko as chief of logistics.

Nkomo was assigned to Mozambique as contingent personal related to arms logistics and intelligence operations and returned to Zambia in 1978 before being demobilised in 1980.

Nkomo is survived by three children.