Zimbabwe African People's Union President Dumiso Dabengwa said Friday that his party will exhume the remains of all ZAPU liberation figures buried at National Heroes Acre in Harare if ZANU-PF keeps denying hero status to members of his party.
Dabengwa made the threat at a memorial service in Bulawayo for the late Thenjiwe Lesabe, a figure in the 1970s liberation struggle who died on February 11.
He said ZANU-PF should remember that Heroes Acre is a national monument, not the preserve of President Robert Mugabe’s long-ruling party.
He said nothing will prevent ZAPU from exhuming the remains of party heroes including the late vice presidents Joshua Nkomo, ZAPU's founder, and Joseph Msika.
ZANU-PF denied Lesabe heroine status saying that she abandoned the party in shifting to ZAPU. Party colleagues and family members said that Lesabe declared before her death that she did not want to be buried at National Heroes Acre.
ZAPU spokesman Methuseli Moyo said ZANU-PF should take Dabengwa’s threats seriously. “Make no mistake, this is not a joke but something that we will do by all means necessary,” Moyo told VOA Studio 7 reporter Gibbs Dube.
ZAPU leader Dumiso Dabengwa said nothing will prevent the party from exhuming the remains of party heroes including the late vice presidents Joshua Nkomo and Joseph Msika
