Simon Khaya Moyo, the Zanu PF national chairman spoke after the burial of former Central Intelligence Organisation operative Cornius Nhloko who was declared a national hero but was buried in his rural home in Gweru.
Nhloko was buried in Silobela on Wednesday and the funeral was low key.
The Zanu PF politburo had declared the little known Nhloko a national hero but his family said the former Zipra cadre had left instructions that he did not wish to be buried at the national shrine.
Another illustrious freedom fighter Thenjiwe Lesabe who died the same week was controversially declined national hero status after her family disclosed that she also made it clear that she did not wish to be buried in Harare.
The Zanu PF politburo claimed it denied Lesabe the status because she had defected to Zapu.
But the justification contradicted its decision to award the late Matabeleland North governor Welshman Mabhena the same status last year after he left Zanu PF protesting the way President Robert Mugabe treated him in 2000.
Mabhena who was unceremoniously removed from his position by Mugabe had become one of Zanu PF’s most rabid critics.
Zanu PF in 2009 also buried the late Zipra commander Ackim Ndlovu at the national shrine even though it was known that he was one of the people behind the revival of Zapu alongside Dumiso Dabengwa.
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Moyo refused to comment on Lesabe’s status but maintained that the party was not worried about pioneers of the liberation struggle refusing to be buried at the Heroes Acre.
“It has never been compulsory for one to be buried at the Heroes Acre,” the former Zapu official said.
“We consult the families of the national heroes and in the case of the late Nhloko he left a will that he wants to be laid to rest next to his father.
“We had to respect that because that is part of our African culture and I don’t see the reason why we should be pressing panic buttons.”
Critics say the heroes’ status has lost its significance because of Zanu PF’s insistence that it would decide who is buried at the shrine built by the North Koreans.
This has seen pioneers of the liberation struggle such as Ndabaningi Sithole being denied the status.
Zipra commanders including Lookout Masuku had to be accorded the status posthumously because they were not in good books with Mugabe at the time of their deaths.
University of Zimbabwe political science lecturer John Makumbe said it was time the Heroes Acre was clearly identified as a Zanu PF cemetery.
“The people who are being buried there are not national heroes but Zanu PF heroes,” Makumbe said.
“It is interesting to see that Zanu PF people from Matabeleland are now refusing to be buried there because they realise that it has now lost its status.”
According to Mabhena’s family, the late nationalist said he did not want to be buried alongside “thieves and crooks.”
Last year, Sibangilizwe Nkomo, the son of the late Vice-President Joshua Nkomo also caused a stir when he said he wanted to remove his father’s remains from the Heroes Acre and rebury them at his Matobo home.
He said his father died a bitter man because of the ill-treatment by Zanu PF from the country’s independence in 1980.
MDC-T spokesman Nelson Chamisa was also quoted saying government should review the funding of families of late national heroes because the status had become a party thing.
“Now we are hearing Zanu PF people say you can’t leave their party and be a hero,” he said.
“If that’s the case, perhaps there is justification in the Finance minister (Tendai Biti) reviewing state funding for the Heroes Acre so that Zanu PF can finance what is essential their private cemetery.”
Last year Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai confronted Mugabe on the issue after Zanu PF refused to declare MDC founder Gibson Sibanda a national hero.
A defiant Mugabe said the Heroes Acre was a preserve of Zanu PF members.
He went on to declare his sister Sabina Mugabe who died in the same month a national heroine.
