WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.
Original Post Date: 2010-07-30 Time: 11:00:02 Posted By: News Poster
Harare – The heroine of Zvimba, Cde Sabina Mugabe, sister to President Robert Mugabe, is no more.
Born on October 14, 1929, she passed away yesterday at around 4am at the Avenues Clinic in Harare. There were many heroes and heroines who fought the settler colonial regime politically on the streets and militarily in the bush. But in the early days, there were few women at the forefront of political protest, Cde Sabina Mugabe, was one of them.
She was a politician in her own right. Due to her immense contribution to the emancipation of Zimbabwe and dedication to the liberation struggle and the cause of women and children, Cde Sabina Mugabe was unanimously declared a national heroine by the Zanu-PF Politburo that met in Harare yesterday.
She will be buried at the National Heroes Acre on Sunday, becoming the sixth heroine to be interred at the national shrine. Other heroines buried at the shrine include her daughter-in-law, Cde Sally Mugabe; and Cdes Johanna (Mama MaFuyana) Nkomo; Julia Tukai Zvobgo; Ruth Chinamano and Sunny Ntombiyelanga Takawira.
The Herald reproduces below a profile on Cde Sabina Mugabe published in Parade magazine in April 1986. “Some people believe that I became politically active just because my brother (then Prime Minister, Cde Robert Mugabe) is in politics, or that I am taking advantage of him.”
These are the words of one Zimbabwe’s bravest and most outspoken women, a sensitive human rights believer — and the Prime Minister’s sister, Cde Sabina Mugabe. She was a revolutionary in her own right and suffered the consequences of becoming involved in the political protest against colonial rule during the 1960s.
Back then, the spirit of freedom gripped many Zimbabweans. It was a time of mass arrests of political activists and even inter-party clashes. But most difficult, said Cde Sabina, was belonging to Zanu when Zapu was the “in party”. At that time, very few women dared join the political fray.
But she told Parade, “I want to make it clear here: Some people have the misconception that I got into politics just because my brother was in it. “This is very erroneous indeed, for I joined politics way back on my own – just like any other person.”
Cde Sabina was the first woman to organise people into political protest – and she risked her children’s security to do it. She recalled how her brother (President Mugabe) had advised her not to get involved. “But I couldn’t avoid it,” she said.
Had she decided not to embroil herself in the political fight against the colonialists, Cde Sabina could have remained a teacher, for she trained as a teacher at Empandeni Teachers’ Training College and later taught at Benhura and Ngezi in Mhondoro in 1950 before she went to teach in her own home area of Zvimba communal lands.
Cde Sabina was a woman who believed in self-reliance, and while she was teaching at Mhandu in 1953, she decided to take up craft-work part-time. She weaved baskets, sewed and sold dresses and cycled all over Zvimba — even to the nearest town of Norton marketing her products.
At this time, teaching wasn’t well paying and, Cde Sabina discovered that she could do better if she concentrated on craft-work, for she had done the course at Empandeni too.
It seemed to pay off handsomely (in those days), for she was eventually able to buy a sewing machine for £25 on a hire purchase scheme through Kutama Mission.”I designed my own working time-table as if I was employed so that I could raise enough money to support my family. At that time I had Innocent (who is late), my first born,” she said.
But life changed when she moved to Highfield in Harare in 1958. It was here that seeds of political involvement began to germinate and she became interested in the various women’s movements at the time, eventually joining the Catholic Women’s Club to which she was later elected chairperson.
As a community leader, Cde Sabina had no choice, but to become involved in the people’s struggle for freedom. Cde Sabina joined the National Democratic Party in 1960 and was asked to organise men and women in her home area of Zvimba. There, she became an effective organiser when Zvimba became one of the most powerful districts in Mashonaland.
She was again on the move and soon became the NDP’s organising secretary for the area.
By 1962, Cde Sabina was busy organising the youths in Zvimba to strike at economic targets belonging to the colonialists. One of those targets was agricultural equipment at Darwendale, which they managed to destroy.
But although economic targets were “fair game”, Cde Sabina said she was “not for killing or shedding blood”.
But then the NDP was banned and many young Zimbabweans decided that there was no alternative to force, so they left the country to train as freedom fighters.
When the NDP and Zapu were banned and Zanu was formed in August 1963, the United Consumers’ Co-operative Society was also born under the guidance of Cde Absolom Ndoro.
“I think this was the beginning of the co-operative movement concept, but some people weren’t happy about it because only a few people were being served.
“The society didn’t work well because it was sabotaged by the whites who demanded that anything we wanted to use be paid for in cash. And so the UCCS did not live long and was soon liquidated,” Cde Sabina said.
Earlier, before Zapu was banned, when her brother, Cde Robert Mugabe, was in Zambia and Tanzania with Cde Joshua Nkomo, Cde Sabina said information reached home that political progress about Zimbabwe was not going well there.
“I remember Cde George Mudukuti told me there was a possibility that we would form a new party. But I asked: How could we form another party when we had made Cde Nkomo life president?”
Concerned about the situation, Cde Moses Marere, Cde Mudukuti, Cde Gedion Nyandoro and others gathered at Cde Sabina’s Highfield home over a weekend and discussed the formation of a new party.
“I asked whether it would be successful, because my first thought was for the safety of my children (the late Innocent, Leo and Kevin) for at that time anything could happen in terms of violence”.
But the spirit of revolution overtook her fears and she soon found herself with others helping to organise support for the new party.
Those who weren’t interested in the idea of a new party went to tell Zapu that another party was in the making.
“I went to Cde Nziramasanga of Zapu and tried to convince him that we should form a new party. But he was opposed to it. But in the end, a date for establishing a new party, Zanu, was set for August 1963.”
Cde Sabina was the only woman in the infant Zanu, but she did not hold a post. At that time, she said, “we decided that women should be left alone”.
It was then that the “hard times” of inter-party rivalry began, and Cde Sabina remembers a time when a group of about 200 from Highfield Community School came to stone her home, although she and her children managed to survive the ordeal.
At that time it was difficult to organise support for the young Zanu: “It was even difficult to go to the shops in Highfield, although l could go to Cde Robert Marere’s shop and buy a few things there. I discovered that shopping was like crucifying myself,” she said.
Wherever she went Cde Sabina was identified: “They used to say: “Someone is smelling in here.” That meant a non-Zapu supporter.”
Cde Sabina also recalled the day when the People’s Caretaker Council was formed after Zapu’s ban. The PPC was formed at Cold Comfort Farm where Zapu had a majority and supporters came from the farm singing and chanting slogans.
“I was at home in Highfield on that day and they came to my house with stones and clubs. They also marched on the homes of Cde Enos Nkala, Cde Henry Hamadzirirpi and Cde Leopold Takawira. There was violence but luckily nobody was injured,” Cde Sabina explained.
Zanu was later banned and her brother Cde Mugabe was arrested, but the police were still looking for Sabina. She went into hiding at Ranche House College, whose principal at that time was Mr Ken Mew.
It was with his blessing that one of the lecturers, Cde Edward Ndoro kept Sabina safely sheltered there for several days. And after the hunt for her had died down, Cde Sabina later joined the college to study bookkeeping. But getting a job after the course was another challenge.
Cde Sabina remembered a vacancy at the Dairy Marketing Board, but she couldn’t get it because, a DMB manager told Mr Mew at the time, she was the sister of Zanu’s secretary. Further trouble loomed sometime after Cde Mugabe’s arrest when Salisbury City Council repossessed his Highfield house.
Of course, Cde Sabina had been staying there too and she fought hard to keep it. “I went to the council and told them they couldn’t have it, but they said l didn’t have any money to pay for the rent. Ours was not the only house.
The council also took the homes of Cde Nkala, Cde Hamadziripi and Cde Moton Malianga, and installed new tenants in them.”
Angry and desperate, Cde Sabina took her three children to the council offices and threatened to leave them there if she didn’t get her home back. It was then that the superintendent gave in and told Cde Sabina to find a deposit and pay the arrears, which she did. But she wouldn’t wait till the end of the month for the tenants who had just been installed to be moved out again!
Despite devoting herself to the struggle at that time, Cde Sabina still managed to continue with her craftwork, and by 1970 she joined the Jesuit centre of Silveira House teaching dressmaking three days a week while selling the products of her own efforts.
Several years passed before the dividends of Cde Sabina’s struggle to win her brother’s house paid off.
For it was in 1974 that the political leaders imprisoned by the Rhodesians were released, and it was to Cde Mugabe’s house that they came for shelter. “Our political leaders came out of jail to find that they had no homes.
“It was a great pity and they all came to our house, including Cde Nkala, Cde Malianga, Cde Tekere and the Reverend Ndabaningi Sithole, who left his trunk and various documents at the house when he was arrested again later. “Others then sought accommodation with their relatives,” Cde Sabina said.
Soon after their release, Cde Maurice Nyagumbo was re-arrested and his sister-in-law rushed round to the Mugabes to warn them of the Smith regime’s latest crackdown.
Everybody feared Cde Robert Mugabe would be next on the list so it was decided that the Zanu’s secretary should leave the country.”I had to look for a car to follow my brother to Nyafaru in Manicaland from where he would leave for Mozambique,” Cde Sabina recalled.
“l later heard that Cde Moven Mahachi had also been arrested.” But these latest arrests further strengthened those Zanu cadres still free to recruit young men to join the liberation struggle. Cde Sabina continued her work at Silveira House, successfully working secretly to recruit cadres.
“We recruited a good number of cadres from Mabvuku who used to work for John Sisk building contractors. They crossed the boarder after being taken to Manicaland. Cde Joseph Chakaipa was leading the recruitment drive in Mabvuku and he later left the country too because all his colleagues had gone”, she said.
Cde Chakaipa was later killed during the war in the Mt Darwin area.
With political tension building up throughout the country, Cde Sabina later managed to leave Zimbabwe using a different surname and went to London in October 1975 where she studied home economics at Battersea College. She worked hard there for she did another course after normal hours at Richmond College – a course in nutrition.
She later went to Canada in 1977 and studied for a Diploma in Social Development at St Francis Xaviers and returned home to continue at Silveira House. She introduced an applied nutrition department at the centre and this contributed to the success of the development of Silveira House.
“I managed to get donors to support the centre which is still flourishing today”. A nutrition department block was built by Cebemo, a Catholic organisation. A Canadian Catholic organisation for Development and Peace were the first donors for the project.
Her involvement in development in developmental programmes did not draw her out of politics and at that time, the African National Council had been formed and she remembers swearing that she would never join it.
But she was consulted on the Pearce Commission and agreed that the then UANC leader, Bishop Abel Muzorewa, head the commission. He was supposed to be neutral, “that was his job,” she added. The Commission’s work failed. “I lost all the interest in supporting Bishop Muzorewa for he preferred to be a politician, which he was not supposed to be,” she said.
She explained that Bishop Muzorewa was supposed to co-ordinate the political groups, Zanu, Zapu and others, so that they could speak with one voice.
“What surprised me was when it was announced that the ANC had decided to become a political party. I did not agree for this was just a Commission, but it had now decided to change into a political party. We could have formed a new party out of that if we wanted,” Cde Sabina said.
She continued to work for Zanu, watching all the conferences that failed to bring independence to Zimbabwe. “I firmly believed now that independence would only come through fighting the imperialists”.
After the Lancaster House talks, she participated in campaigning for Zanu and continued to organise women in her area in Mashonaland West where she later won a seat as a Member of Parliament under the Zanu-PF ticket in the 1985 general elections.
Through her experience of organising women, Cde Sabina Mugabe was chosen secretary for Women’s Affairs in the province and when the Women’s League for the ruling party was launched she became the National Production Secretary and even more powerful at Zanu-PF’s Congress, when she joined the Central Committee.
On her political success, Cde Sabina said that working with people (the masses) was an in-built ‘thing’ in her. She said, she observed equality for all people, man or woman, black or white. “l feel pity for the poor, and l am interested in people helping one another. I am very sensitive to human rights,” she said.
Asked if it was the Catholic Church that had influenced her, she said it was not at all, but she had just grown up like that. She said that when her brother told her not to get involved in politics, he feared that she would have been arrested and forced to leave the children.
“I did not accept his idea even when he said, ‘Please Sabina, do not get involved’. I was just lucky I was not arrested at the times the police were looking for me. It’s just luck.”
Sources: A Guide to the Heroes Acre – Some basic facts about Zimbabwe’s heroes and the Heroes Acre; Parade – April 1986; The Herald.
Original Source: 
Published by the government of Zimbabwe
Original date published: 30 July 2010
Source: http://allafrica.com/stories/201007300398.html?viewall=1