Mugabe's vendetta knows no bounds - Zapu

Zapu Deputy Spokesperson Iphithule Maphosa has said President Robert Mugabe has once again insulted the memory, the ideals and the achievements of the national liberation struggle by perusing a personal vendetta against yet another perceived personal enemy, former Speaker of Parliament Advocate Cyril Ndebele.

He said Mugabe is on record describing Cyril Ndebele as a traitor after he allowed a debate on a motion by Dzikamai Mavhaire who was calling for Mugabe to resign.

"Ndebele, a lawyer by profession was exercising the duties of his office as provided for by the law, and for that he was demoted from his position. It is therefore disgusting that Robert Mugabe will still hold a grudge against a deceased person to the extent of denying him his unquestionable status as a national hero of Zimbabwe," he said.

"The failure national hero snub for former Speaker of Zimbabwe's Parliament vindicates ZAPU and all who have always questioned the process of declaring and conferring hero status in the country. "

Maphosa said Ndebele was ZAPU National Chairman by 1970 and was part of the delegation to the three conferences in Geneva, Malta and Lancaster that led to the ceasefire and negotiations for independence.

By 1970 Robert Mugabe was merely a secretary for Information and Publicity in ZAPU, and therefore very junior to Cyril Ndebele in the hierarchy of the nationalist movements, both ZAPU and ZANU.

"We then wonder where he goes off and gets the guts to call Ndebele a traitor and deny him his constitutional right of state recognition as a national hero. In the words of the late ZAPU President Joshua Nkomo, we remind Mugabe that, "….you don't give a man the status of a hero. All you can do is recognize it. It is his," he said.

"True to the nature of a traitor, Mugabe has been consistent in deliberately failing to recognize the national hero status of his former colleagues in ZAPU. ZAPU laments the emasculation of its former senior members who remained in ZANU after the collapse of the Unity Accord."

He said these former leaders who include VP Mphoko, Tshinga Dube, Angeline Masuku, Khuthswekhaya Ndlovu SK Moyo, Kembo Mohadi, Abednico Ncube and countless others are so terrified of Robert Mugabe that they have failed to even speak out on behalf of their comrade.

"One will be forgiven for wondering if they are safeguarding their slots at that hill where thieves lie in Harare. At least they are staying true to the la cosa nostre code of silence (this thing of ours). This latest incident gives word to the calls for the conferment of hero status to be taken away from a party structure and handed over to a body of qualified and agreed individuals. It should never be left in the hands of an individual who has a documented track record of personal vendetta," he said.

"In the current scenario, hero status is conferred on friendship and blinded loyalty. We have proven thieves who were rewarded for their loyalty and are lying at Heroes Acre like Maurice Nyagumbo of the infamous Willowvale Scandal... We also have people with dubious liberation war and political credentials like Border Gezi lying at the shrine, while deserving cadres like Lookout Masuku, James Chikerema, Mabhena, and Ndabaningi Sithole were denied their status because of personal differences with the de facto Father Christmas at Munhumutapa."