There will be three burials at the National Heroes Acre on Monday 29 April, of national heroes Nash Dzimiri, Brigadier General Shadreck Vezha, and heroine Tsitsi Jadagu, reported the Chronicle.
Dzimiri and Jadagu both died after a short illness while Brig Gen Vezha died in a road traffic accident together with two Zimbabwe Defence Forces (ZDF) Majors and a Sergeant.
On Monday, 22 April, the ZANU PF Politburo held an extraordinary session whose main agenda was to make arrangements for the three heroes’ simultaneous burials.
Speaking at a press briefing after the Politburo session, ZANU PF national spokesperson Christopher Mutsvangwa, said:
Today we had an extraordinary session of the Zanu-PF Politburo where President Dr Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa saw it fit to convene this extraordinary meeting at a very solemn occasion where the Government and the party and the people of Zimbabwe, in general, have lost solid patriots.
The burial will be on Monday because now there are two heroes and a heroine so we need to organise properly and coordinate the families. We felt that we wanted to grant these two heroes and the heroine a proper burial with due attendance by the people of Zimbabwe.
He said the Politburo had noted Dzimiri’s undeniably immense contributions, hence the decision to grant him hero status. Said Mutsvangwa:
Cde Nash Dzimiri had an outstanding revolutionary career where he fought at the front, he would also train abroad in specialised areas of military warfare and was a confidant at the highest level of the high command of ZANLA forces, particularly in the enforcement of discipline.
He was also an intelligence officer who gave Africa one of the most admired security organisations which has become the basis of the Africa Security Council Union.
Mutsvangwa said Vezha was set to be posted as a military attaché of Zimbabwe to Tanzania before his untimely death. He said:
One of them, a promising young General, recently promoted, who was looking forward to a more illustrious posting as a military attaché of Zimbabwe to our sister republic of Tanzania, that’s Brigadier General Shadreck Vezha. He was involved in an accident between two military vehicles in the Battlefields area in Kwekwe.
The party and the Government have seen it fit to recommend to the Politburo and the Politburo duly obliged and the President assented that Cde Brigadier General Shadreck Vezha be declared a national hero.
We want him to serve as an example of a dedicated patriot to the young people, girl child and boy child, that works of valour and patriotic commitment to the Republic of Zimbabwe will always be duly recognised.
Mutsvangwa described Jadagu as a dedicated cadre whom the Politburo had seen fit to bestow the honour of national heroine status. He said:
Sadly as the President was coming to deliberate on these two male cadres, we received news that Cde Grace Tsitsi Jadagu, a long-time cadre of the party, this one belongs to the Women’s League.
She passed away and Harare Province has seen it fit to ask that she be declared a national hero and the President in consultation with his Politburo duly acceded to the request from Harare Province.
So Cde Gare Tsitsi Jadagu will be interred together with the two others, so we have a triple burial at the Heroes Acre of these three outstanding patriots after all of them have been conferred with national hero status.
Cde Jadagu was at the forefront of mobilising votes for ZANU PF so that the ruling party could snatch two seats from Muzorewa in the urban areas.
Mutsvangwa added that Jadagu was one of the organisers of the 1980 elections who managed to make ZANU PF penetrate urban areas.
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