Harare – Zimbabweans paid tribute to late vice president Joshua Nkomo on the day of he died 26 years ago on July 1, 1999.
Nkomo died at the age of 82.
Popularly known as ‘Father Zimbabwe’ Nkomo was the leader of Zimbabwe African People’s Unity (ZAPU) during the armed liberation struggle in the 1960s and 1970s.
His party later united with Zimbabwe African’s National Union (ZANU) which was led by late Robert Mugabe to form ZANU PF in 1987.
The unity arrangement came after the Gukurahundi atrocities in Matabeleland and Midlands region in which thousands men, women and children were killed by security forces in what then Mugabe’s government justified saying they wanted to quell an uprising against his government.
The Gukurahundi massacres dented an independent Zimbabwe.
In his memoirs that he wrote “Nkomo : The story of my life”, the late veteran nationalist described the sad violence of the early eighties before the unity government.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa has appointed a committee led traditional leaders to hear stories of the Gukurahundi massacres in an effort to promote national healing and peace.
In a message to commemorate Nkomo’s death, Mnangagwa said Nkomo played a key role in the liberation of Zimbabwe.
”From humble origins under successive colonial governments, Dr Joshua Nkomo devoted an entire life to raising national consciousness among his oppressed countrymen and women, whom he together with other revolutionaries subsequently led during the protracted national and armed struggle,” Mnangagwa said.
Mnangagwa said Nkomo together with other nationalists like Benjamin Burombo, Masotsha Ndlovu, George Nyandoro, Michael Mawema, Morton Malianga, and Robert Mugabe were harrased and imprisoned by the colonial Rhodesia government before Zimbabwe became independent in 1980.
”Chibwe Chitedza, as Dr Nkomo came to be popularly known, endured imprisonment in notorious camps such as Gonakudzingwa, but the colonial efforts failed to break his spirit. Today, twenty-six years later, Zimbabwe can look back with pride to the life of a liberator, an astute politician, and a champion of Pan-Africanism. A true son of the soil, Dr Nkomo was passionate about the land as the major reason for which armed struggle had been waged,” he said.
Hundreds Zimbabweans took to social media to remember Nkomo paying tributes to his sacrifice to create a better Zimbabwe.