Harare (New Ziana) –Zimbabwean youths should emulate their nineteen-sixties and seventies peers who sacrificed their youth to go and take up arms to liberate the country from the colonialists, President Emerson Mnangagwa said on Friday.
He was speaking during the burial of the late Brigadier General (Rtd) Walter Kanhanga at the National Heroes Acre.
Brig Gen Kanaka whose Chimurenga name was Charles Munyoro, died in his sleep at his rural home in Guruve, Mashonaland Central province last Friday at the age of 73.
Addressing thousands of mourners who gathered for the burial, President Mnangagwa said the independence and freedom that the country enjoyed should not be taken for granted, as it did not come on a silver platter, but through the supreme sacrifices by the likes of the late Brig Gen Kanhanga,
He said the youth should take a leaf from the liberation war fighters who subordinated their own aspirations for the betterment of the lives of all Zimbabweans.
“Our youth, the vanguard and future of our nation, should be keen to emulate the youth of the 1960s and 70s, whose vision and sacrifice yielded the independence and sovereignty we enjoy today,” he said.
The youth, President Mnangagwa said, had a duty to defend the independence and take a leading role in building and developing the country.
“They fought to ensure that this democracy is enjoyed by all the people of Zimbabwe,” he said.
“As a Zanu PF government, we will continue to guarantee this right from all types of malcontents.”
Chronicling the liberation history of Brigadier General Kanhanga, President
Mnangagwa said he was one those who opened the Chimoio Training Camp in Mozambique and actively administered the Zimbabwe People’s Army (ZIPA), which was the backdrop of the country’s present Foreign Policy mantra of being “a friend to all and enemy to none”.
He said saddened by the inhuman treatment that black people were being subjected to by the Rhodesian settler regime, the late Brig Gen Kanhanga became a fervent participant in student politics whilst still at St Albert’s Mission School in Mt Darwin.
In December 1968, when he was only 18 years old, Brig Gen Kanhanga left his family home and proceeded to Zambia to join the liberation war under the mentorship of the late General Solomon Mujuru and Air Marshal Josiah Tungamirai.
He was appointed provincial political commissar of Gaza Province in 1976 and discharged his duties with distinction.
In 1978 he was appointed the ZANLA military attaché to Botswana, which was a strategic conduit for cadres escaping to join the liberation struggle under both ZANLA and ZIPRA.
It was in this post that Brigadier Kanhanga played a critical role of assisting thousands of cadres to transit through Botswana to go for military training in Angola, Mozambique, Zambia and Tanzania.
Brig Gen Kanhanga retired from the army in 1997 and joined the Zimbabwe National Parks and Wildlife Management Authority, where he rose through the ranks to become Acting Director.
Following the organisation’s transformation into a parastatal in 2005, he retired to focus on serving his party ZANU PF as well as farming in Mashonaland Central province.
The late Brig Gen Kanhanga also held a Non–Executive Directorship post at Zimpapers, Trustee of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces Benefit Fund, Army Charities and also served as a Commissioner with the Zimbabwe Defence Forces Service Commission.
New Ziana
