‘Sellout’ Ndabaningi Sithole finally conferred hero status 23 years after death
By Staff Writer
ZANU-PF’s founding member, the late Ndabaningi Sithole’s ceremony to confer the post humous national hero status was finally convened in Chipinge Saturday, almost 23 years after his death.
The ex-Chipinge lawmaker played an indisputable role in the fight against colonial rule and through his guidance the ruling party, Zanu-pf was birthed.
On his passing on, then former, late former President Robert Mugabe declined to confer him the national hero status arguing that despite putting up a vigilant fight, the Chipinge clansman ended up selling out the struggle and conniving with the white settlers.
But addressing delegates and party supporters at the late Sithole’s Freedom Farm in Chipinge Saturday, President Emmerson Mnangagwa said the country’s history would not be complete if such gallant sons are not honored.
He said for that reason, the Second Republic acknowledges the role played by our fore bearers and founding fathers during the First Chimurenga/Umvukela war and the Second Chimurenga war.
“On 12 December 2000, the founding President of ZANU, our revolutionary luminary and leader passed on at a hospital in the United States of America, the Reverend Ndabaningi Sithole. A son of the soil had fallen,” he said.
Mnangagwa said under his leadership, the New Dispensation is on a mission and path towards restoring our country’s historical legacy.
“In line with this mission, my administration decided to confer the National Hero Status to one of our early nationalists and liberation icons, Musharukwa, Dhodha reKanyi, the Late Reverend Ndabaningi Chandiwana Sithole.
“Today’s event resonates well with the mantra of the Second Republic: No-one and no place will be left behind. The Reverend Sithole was not only a son of Chipinge, but also a son of Zimbabwe, and a son of Africa. Tinobonga yamho! Reverend Ndabaningi Chandiwana Sithole was born on 21 July 1920,” he said.
Ndabaningi Sithole (21 July 1920 – 12 December 2000) founded the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU), a militant organisation that opposed the government of Rhodesia, in July 1963.[1] Sithole was a progeny of a Ndau father and a Ndebele mother.
He also worked as a United Church of Christ in Zimbabwe (UCCZ) minister.[2] He spent 10 years in prison after the government banned ZANU. A rift along tribal lines split ZANU in 1975, and he lost the 1980 elections to Robert Mugabe.
Sithole was born in Nyamandhlovu, Southern Rhodesia, on 21 July 1920. He studied teaching in the United States from 1955 to 1958, and was ordained a Methodist minister in 1958. The publication of his book African Nationalism and its immediate prohibition by the minority government motivated his entry into politics.
During his studies in the United States he studied at the Andover Newton Theological School and attended the First Church in Newton, founded in 1665, both located in Newton, Massachusetts.
He was one of the founders and chief architect of Zimbabwe African National Union party in August 1963 in conjunction with Herbert Chitepo, Robert Mugabe and Edgar Tekere in the Highfields House of Enos Nkala. After a split from ZAPU. In 1964 there was a party Congress at Gwelo, where Sithole was elected president and appointed Robert Mugabe to be his secretary general.
ZANU was banned in 1964 by Ian Smith’s government. He spent 10 years in prison after being arrested on 22 June 1964[3] alongside Mugabe, Tekere, Nyagumbo and Takawira for his political activities. While in prison he specifically authorised Chitepo to continue the struggle from abroad as a representative of ZANU. Sithole was convicted on a charge of plotting to assassinate Ian Smith and released from prison in 1974.
On 18 March 1975 Chitepo was assassinated in Lusaka, Zambia, with a car bomb. Mugabe, in Mozambique at the time, was unanimously chosen to be the first secretary of ZANU. Later that year there was a factional split, with many Ndebele following Joshua Nkomo into the equally militant ZAPU.
Sithole eventually founded the moderate ZANU-Ndonga party, which renounced violent struggle, while the Shona-dominated ZANU (now called ZANU PF) followed Mugabe with a more militant agenda.[4]
Sithole joined Abel Muzorewa’s transitional government under the Internal Settlement on 31 July 1979.[5] Later in September 1979 he attended the Lancaster House Agreement, chaired by Lord Carrington, which paved the way for fresh elections, but his ZANU-Ndonga Party’s supporters and their villages were targeted by Mugabe’s ZANLA troops and it failed to win any seats in the 1980 elections.
His exit from ZANU was claimed by Mugabe to have been caused by his neglecting the fighters in Zambia (where their camp was bombed resulting in many fatalities and casualties).
