MUGABE TO BE BURIED AT NATIONAL SHRINE
Ex-Zimbabwe president to be entombed at new mausoleum in Heroes Acre in 30 days
FORMER Zimbabwe leader Robert Mugabe’s family and the government on Friday said he would be buried in about a month after they agreed to entomb him at a monument for national heroes here.
Mugabe died in Singapore last week aged 95, leaving Zimbabweans divided over the legacy of a leader once lauded as an anticolonial guerrilla hero but whose 37-year iron-fisted rule ended in a coup in 2017.
His family and President Emmerson Mnangagwa, a former Mugabe ally who turned against him, had been at odds over where and when he would be buried after
his body returned home on Wednesday from Singapore.
On Friday, they agreed he would be buried at the National Heroes Acre, but the final ceremony will only take place in 30 days after a new mausoleum is built for Mugabe.
“The government, the chiefs, the traditional leaders went to the Heroes Acre. They showed each other where President Mugabe is going to be buried and that place will take about 30 days to complete,” his nephew, Leo Mugabe, said.
Mnangagwa confirmed the burial would take place once a new site had been built there for the former leader.
“We are building a mausoleum for our founding father on top of the hill at Heroes Acre,” he said.
Yesterday, around a dozen African leaders and former presidents attended Mugabe’s official state funeral at a sports stadium here.
Tensions had erupted when Mnangagwa’s government proposed a burial at the monument while the family said he would be buried at a private ceremony, possibly in his homestead of Kutama, in the Zvimba region, northwest of the capital.
Mugabe had been travelling to Singapore for medical treatment, but allies said his health deteriorated rapidly after his ouster.
Mugabe dismissed Mnangagwa as first vice president in 2017 — a move many perceived as a bid to position his wife Grace to succeed him after nearly four decades of autocratic rule.
Soon after, Mugabe was toppled by protesters and the army in what was seen as part of a power struggle within the ruling ZANU-PF party between proMnangagwa factions and Mugabe loyalists siding with Grace.
He remained free in Zimbabwe with his family after he was forced from office.
Zimbabweans have been split over the death of a man who some still praise for ending white-minority rule and widening access to health and education to the poor black majority.
But many Zimbabweans remember his tyrannical leadership and economic mismanagement that forced millions to escape a country ravaged by hyperinflation and shortages of food, drugs and fuel.
Mugabe’s legacy was marked by a crackdown known as Gukurahundi, which killed an estimated 20,000 alleged “dissidents”, and his violent seizure of whiteowned farms that made him an international pariah.