Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe with First Lady Amai Grace at a ZANU-PF campaign rally in Gweru. The opposition MDC-T withdrew from the June 27 run-off elections. The MDC-T has signed an agreement to hold talks with the ruling ZANU-PF party.
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos
By Takunda Maodza
Zimbabwe Herald
National heroine Cde Sabina Mugabe was given a resounding send-off at the National Heroes’ Acre in Harare yesterday with thousands of people, among them senior Government officials and diplomats, bidding her farewell.
Mourners with placards extolling her contributions to the liberation struggle and women’s empowerment broke into song and dance as the gun carriage bearing the casket bedecked with the national flag rolled into the national shrine.
Earlier in the morning, thousands of mourners thronged Mbare’s Stodart Hall for the traditional body viewing.
Cde Sabina Mugabe (80) — sister to President Mugabe — died in Harare on Thursday morning and was declared a national heroine in recognition of the sterling work she did before and after independence from British colonial rule.
Addressing mourners yesterday, President Mugabe thanked Zanu-PF’s Politburo and Government for honouring his sister.
He saluted the multitudes gathered at the national shrine to pay their last respects to the national heroine.
"Ndinoda kukutendai, kukutendesai, ndichitenda Hurumende nechiratidzo ichi chechido, chorukudzo chakapihwa kumhuri.
"Tinotenda zvakare musangano wakarera unova ndiwo wakarwirwa. Mwana wedu aive nekuzvipira kurwira nyika nekusha-ndira vazhinji," he said.
President Mugabe traced Cde Sabina Mugabe’s dedication and resilience to her mother Ambuya Bona.
He said he did not influence Cde Sabina Mugabe to join politics when he returned from Ghana in 1960.
"Handina kumboti kuna Sabina kana Donato (his late young brother) pindai. I left it for them to make their choice asi handina kuvarambidza," President Mugabe said.
Because of their political activities , Cdes Sabina Mugabe and Donato Mugabe were incarcerated when racist Rhodesian forces found weapons at their Zvimba home.
President Mugabe said she became an enemy target and in 1979 Zimbabwe-Rhodesia forces attacked the late heroine, her children and young brothers at his house in Highfield .
"Imiwoye zvatiri kuviga sisi ava ngativei nekurangarira kuti nyaya yavakashandira inyaya yedu tose.
"Tive vanhu vane hunhu muno muZimbabwe. Sabina is now gone. Her record speaks for itself. No one can take it away from her," President Mugabe said.
After 1980, Cde Sabina Mugabe — who was legislator for Makonde East and later Zvimba South — initiated chicken rearing, irrigation and paprika projects.
"Kuconstituency kwake vaitaura vachiti achiriko maprojects acho," President Mugabe said.
Cde Sabina Mugabe entered active politics in 1960 as the National Democratic Party’s organising secretary for Zvimba.
After the NDP was banned in 1961, she joined its successor, Zapu and then Zanu in 1963.
"She was there in Gweru when we launched the party: very visible, militant and aggressive part of youthful cadres spoiling for a fight.
"I was in the leadership as secretary-general while she was in the lower echelons of the party, and thus more exposed to hazardous activities of defiance and sabotage," the President said.
She mobilised people in Zvimba against colonialism and assisted detained nationalists with food and clothing.
With the likes of Amai Victoria Chitepo and the late national heroine Cde Ruth Chinamano, Cde Sabina Mugabe was a conduit between detained nationalists and Zanu-PF’s external wing.
"What perhaps passes as one of her great roles in the unfolding struggle was playing courier of vital communications between the incarcerated leadership inside Rhodesia and those planning and prosecuting the war of liberation from Zambia under Cde Herbert Chitepo
"As detainees or prisoners, we lived under very austere conditions, with the racist authorities limiting our contacts with the outside world.
"We were allowed only one letter a week each, which letter had to go through prison wardens for vetting.
"Yet we were planning a war and needed to link up with Cde Chitepo and his colleagues based externally in Zambia.
"Obviously, it would have been foolhardy to use official channels for this pur- pose.
"We had to devise secret ways of getting the better of the racists. This is where brave women like Amai Chitepo and Sabina came in."
After independence in 1980, the late heroine became a symbol of self-reliance and empowerment.nation benefits from diamonds.
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